


When in Rome

by Satin_Swallow



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Adventure, Espionage, Europe, F/M, Mystery, Rome - Freeform, Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-08-10 23:19:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 61,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7865395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satin_Swallow/pseuds/Satin_Swallow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Premier of Victoria puts in a personal request with the Honourable Phryne Fisher, she is hard-pressed to decline. That this special task will take her to the City of Seven Hills proves far too tantalising to forgo and, before long, she embroils herself and those she cares for in a mystery that will have not only personal, but possibly global repercussions. When Jack Robinson finds himself absconded from his home and into the mix, he wonders if the alarming Miss Fisher ever looks before she leaps?</p><p>{AU after the Season 1 Finale}</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Curious Proposition

**Author's Note:**

> This is a dear import from FanFiction.net, and I hope you'll bear with me as I forge forward and earnestly try and get it done! I apologise in advance for my tendency to do surface-level research, and ask that you generously overlook any glaring historical errors. Most of all, I hope you have as much fun reading this as I had writing it, and that it fills in the gaping hole that is a lack of Season 4!

“Oh come _on_ , Dot! What sort of Catholic are you? I thought you’d be delighted!” The level of teasing in the Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher’s voice was entirely owed to the level of _excitement_ she felt. Her blood was charging through her veins as she dashed up the stairs and into her bedroom with an energy that ought to have been directed to an activity more rewarding than writing a note. “After the Holy Land, Rome has to come a very close second for your lot in a game of _‘You’ll Never Guess Who Touched This’_.”

 

“I _am_ delighted, Miss, or I would be, I just - I can’t _go_!” Dorothy Williams was apologetic, terrified even, as she refused her employer, following in her wake with a stocking half-darned and ignoring her light jab. 

 

“Oh nonsense, whyever not?” the Lady Detective scoffed dismissively at the refusal as she bustled on. 

 

“I just couldn’t, not with -” There was a familiar sort of delayed and peripheral shock at the question regarding her Catholicity and Dot immediately began to worry about that as well, since her _other_ great faith was unfailingly invested in Miss Fisher’s accusatory abilities. If Miss Fisher asserted something, she was _never_ wrong. “It’s just not done,” Dot offered with a sudden lack of surety that gave off the scent of wounded prey now vulnerable. Phryne did not miss it for a moment. 

 

“Oh, who cares about what’s _done_? If I spent my life worrying about what is and isn’t _done_ , I’m certain I would never _do_ anything!” 

 

“But what about -” 

 

“Whatever it is will undoubtedly survive a little foray in the midst the _tedium_ of the rest of it,” the writing paper was retrieved with all the flourish and flair of a thousand Parisian artists. 

 

“I can’t, Miss Fisher. My priest would never -“ the girl flailed. 

 

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake! It’s just a lark, Dot! ”

 

“It’s at least a two-month journey!” Dot exclaimed incredulously, surprising even herself at the forthright answer. It quickly gave way to a wide-eyed look of absolute mortification as a pause filled the space that had been reserved for frantic activity a moment before and suspended the arguably one-sided conversation that had begun as a whirlwind through the front door. Phryne grinned, thoroughly inclined to be impressed with the improvement to her companion’s tendency towards timidity and, as usual, pushed as far as she could along the boundary. 

 

“And?” she pressed with the tantalising promise of adventure, a hand to her hip. 

 

“And - and before I worked for you, Miss Fisher, I - I hadn’t left Melbourne in my life,” Dot pleaded by way of part explanation. 

 

“Precisely why I insist you come along!” Phryne sat down at her bureau, allowing the height of a pristine brow to punctuate her words and express exactly what she thought of _that_ sentiment before it descended to the task of efficiently pouring out urgent instructions in her elegant hand. The question hung in the air for a moment to the rhythmic sound of her pen strokes. She sensed that a further prompt was needed. “I would hardly drag you aboard kicking and screaming, however, if you’re not up to it,” her glance conceded in a tone entirely designed to play on the pluck she knew lay beneath Dot’s erstwhile dependence on her local clergyman, “I mean, if you’re absolutely set on staying here.” 

 

“I’m not,” Dot rebutted quickly, wanting more than anything to avoid what might be disappointment in her employer’s voice, “it’s just -”

 

Phryne gave a theatrical sigh of frustration, before announcing “Well, you have exactly two hours to decide!” She then rose just as quickly as she had settled and handed the missive to Dot as though she were handing her an ultimatum, “I’ve a feeling we could spend all day embroiled in ‘it’s just’s, so I’m off to see man about an ocean liner! Pass this on to Mr Butler, if you would, and when I get back I expect at least a valise ready for the voyage!” 

 

And just like that, she was gone, whipping off and leaving Dot - still with stocking in hand - once again in the centre of the room that had been the source of so many of the poor girl’s most challenging decisions. She could only be grateful that the visit had been a very short one, since Miss Fisher had not had time enough to lay waste to the morning’s careful righting of her boudoir. Dot allowed herself a sigh then, to counteract the tension that had risen for too quickly in her chest and actually consider for a moment what Miss Phryne had proposed. 

 

When the lady detective had gone off for her luncheon meeting with the handsome Italian Dot could only imagine came alongside a name like Rudolpho Agostini, her companion had thought nothing of it in the long line of such appointments that peppered her lady’s calendar. Now that there had been such a drastic aftermath to it, Dot fairly imagined that she had experienced a deep sense of foreboding the moment his card - ever á la mode - had arrived in her hand in the care of a phenomenally-dressed valet.

 

Rome! 

 

To think she had once dreamed of going there, with its mountains of religious relics and landmarks, and _iced cream_ if she were totally honest. As she considered - and quickly reconsidered - now taking her rest on the edge of Miss Fisher’s bed, she could think of nothing _worse_ than the opportunity that had been presented to her. In her hurry, Phryne had not considered what a trip of six months at least could mean for a girl like Dot. 

 

Not all were so free in their lives to simply abscond for a half year and disappear into some startling adventure, expecting the pieces to fall neatly back into place when the time called for it. There was her family to consider - though she knew that her steady income would be well taken-care-of by her conscientious employer - and the business of her church commitments, of course. 

 

Above all, however, there was Hugh. 

 

For all of Phryne’s generosity, Dot was not inclined to think that Constable Collins would be along for the ride, and if she left him now, who knew what sweeping angel would descend on him in her absence? The thought of his being unfaithful never once crossed her mind, but the possibility of her demanding his dedication to her for such an extended and unpredictable absence seemed wholly unfair. It was not within her to require such dramatic displays of love, and she was not sure that Miss Fisher - in all her sophisticated ways - would understand, which brought her to the root cause of her earlier protestation.

 

If Miss Fisher could not _understand_ , how could Dot possibly expect her to keep her on as lady’s maid? She finally gave over her objections and collapsed into a seat on the fur throw at the foot of the bed, her brows knitting in the kind of consternation that had not been uncommon to the girl’s face in her latest post, despite how keenly she felt it now. 

 

Did she have it in her to choose between her Miss Fisher and her Constable? 

 

***

 

“The Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher, how are you?” Premier Hogan effused as his guest stepped lithely into his office. It had been a hop skip and a jump from their first meeting at the Windsor Hotel to the friendship that now persisted. Phryne never let go of an influential contact and the Premier had found himself moved by the tenacity with which she had advocated against the release of Murdoch Foyle. Her exploits as a detective had also not gone unnoticed to him, the nasty business with Mayor Phillips having particularly rattled the halls of Parliament at the news of his arrest. 

 

“You will never hear me complain again, Premier, with the Autumn finally here to break this awful heat,” thedetective smiled as she approached and shook his hand before taking the seat he offered her in a small section of the room decorated for entertaining dignitaries and those who needed to be intimidated by the circumstance of Government. 

 

“Yes, I can’t imagine such weather is ideal for fine silks, and it would certainly get in the way of a good day coat from time to time,” he chuckled.

 

“I never let anything get in the way of a good day coat,” she countered elegantly, turning his chuckle into a laugh in earnest.

 

“Of course not, how stupid of me!” he raised his hands and his bright smile in playful surrender at the mere thought of having suggested that she might, “Can I offer you a drink?” 

 

“Isn’t it a mite too early in the day?” Phryne queried with an innocence so excellently feigned it almost covered over the teasing truth beneath it. Both she and her host knew full well that the time of day was as much a hindrance to a good whiskey as the weather was to a good day coat.

 

“This is Parliament, Miss Fisher, it is _never_ too early in the day,” he moved to the sideboard to relieve a decanter of its burden and returned with two tumblers, handing one to her before sitting in his own cushioned seat. He was a picture, sitting there, his tie ever-so-slightly loosened by the work that was likely to have built to a fever pitch in light of recent political developments. It was well-known that challenges were pressing in on the Labor Government from all sides and major disagreements within the party were a serious cause for concern. From the way Phryne had read the situation, there were already hounds at the poor man’s heels. 

 

It was only a matter of extreme importance, then, that could draw him out of it; helped merrily along by the allure of a hard-earned glass ofIrish Whiskey, she was sure. 

 

“I received your offer this morning,” she began, not wanting to be any more a pressure on his time than was necessary, “at the hand of a dear friend I thought never to cross paths with again after I left the Continent. You will have to tell me the fascinating story of your connection with him at a more leisurely time; it’s a tale I couldn’t bear to miss.” 

 

“I could tell a thousand tales and still fall short of any adventure of yours, Miss Fisher. I’m sure I’d love to hear a little of how _you_ first crossed paths with him as well,” Phryne smiled enigmatically as he continued after a sip from his glass, “but he tells me there are a number of faces in this endeavour that are likely to be recognisable to you, and it could well be a conversation reserved for different circumstances, for the sake of brevity.” 

 

“Oh?” Phryne’s attention pricked, her head tilting slightly at the suggestion, “He didn’t mention anything to me about familiar faces, only a matter of some distinct importance, which I assumed considering the source. Although, familiar faces do point towards an answer to another pressing question I have regarding your reasoning in choosing _me_ for this assignment.”

 

“Your reputation is formidable,” the Premier responded in defence of her, as though affronted by her modesty. 

 

“True, but hardly in a skill set that could be of any use to you,” she finally sipped gently from her glass, unable to help grinning into it.

 

“It’s hard to know what skill set would be best in this instance.” 

 

Phryne eyed him with the usual tenacity that lingered behind any moment which aroused her suspicion, “Why don’t you tell me exactly what this ‘instance’ is, and we can muddle through the details together?” Hogan hesitated, finding more than her reputation formidable when faced with making this request of her. 

 

“It’s a rather delicate matter, Phryne,” he finally began.

 

“I’ve rather a knack for delicate matters,” she said. 

 

“Quite,” he conceded as she carefully upended his gilding the lily. “The Governor has asked me personally to present the proposition to you, as it is a matter of some tension between His Majesty’s government and the current leadership in Rome. We should have sent our best diplomats to deal with it, but Mr Agostini insisted that your familiarity with the group in question would be a better match, and avoid a ruffling of feathers that we would just as soon avoid right now.”

 

“I assume you are referring to the rather tentative arrangements being made between our two governments over Italian immigration?” the disdain for the policy was not far from Phryne’s voice, even in the presence of a man in such a position of power. In fact, Mr Hogan was not entirely convinced it was not there for his benefit. 

 

“It is a gentlemen’s agreement,” he tested, but Phryne merely rolled her eyes, “and if we do not conclude deliberations on our limitations on the quotas for Italian migrants, there will be other catastrophic economic effects on trade and shipping between the two countries.” 

 

“Never let the plight of a thousand helpless people get in the way of the bottom line,” she bit back, hard and sharp. 

 

“Phryne,” he all but pleaded.

 

“What is the _problem,_ Mr Hogan?” she pressed, holding her brows in question until any more silence became uncomfortable. 

 

“What do you know about Benito Mussolini?”

 

“Il Duce?” she responded with sing-song amusement, “Men always do love a dramatic title.” 

 

“Italian men especially,” the Premier responded and Phryne could not help the tilt of a smile despite her earlier political irritation. 

 

“I know that he is just now closing his strangle-hold on Italian politics. I believe the Fascist Party has managed to finally _ban_ all other parties,” she waved her hand dismissively through the air, “it’s almost refreshing that he has given up his illusion of a Government of the People in favour of codifying the status quo. That said, he seems to have done a decent job of impressing most Italians on the way through, ‘A Man of Action’ I believe they’re calling him. ” 

 

“And he certainly is that,” Hogan added, “his handling of the Mafia has been thoroughly _active_. If reports are to be believed.”

 

“Quite,” Phryne’s political irritation returned, this time in line with the Premier’s as they both silently considered the violent means that had been employed during the Great War and the advancements that must have been made since. 

 

“But reports are simply reports until they come from the right mouths,” the Premier continued, interrupting Phryne’s revisitation of undeniable horrors, “which is why you’re here. We have a man on the inside - Australian-born, though he returned to Italy as a child - and he has been in contact with our people. He’s offered Prime Minister Baldwin and the British Government information on Il Duce’s leadership plans that are of extreme interest to us all. He promises intelligence that could neutralise whatever threat Mussolini and his Fascist Party promises in exchange for safe passage back to Australia and his remaining family here.”

 

Phryne took a moment to take this new information in, considering the multiple angles of contention, “I can see now why the Prime Minister is far from keen to openly antagonise Il Duce by assisting him.”

 

“Yes,” the Premier acknowledged briefly, “and his Health Minister, Chamberlain, is putting a great deal of pressure on him, which is why Agostini suggested a more… feminine approach. ” 

 

“So, you want _me_ to retrieve this man?” Phryne clarified, wanting to be absolutely sure that she knew what it was the Premier’s very round-about explanation was getting at. 

 

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” he said, allowing the gravity of the request the proper silence. 

 

“I’m assuming Rudolpho was his means of contacting us,” the lady detective began to conclude aloud, “but that still doesn’t shed any light on his reasoning for involving me.” Hogan seemed to hesitate, breathing in and considering his next words extraordinarily carefully. 

 

“He thought you might make contact with your old friends in Rome, perhaps even Florence, and develop a ruse that might serve as a convincing, well, _reason_ for this man to return to Australia - _with you_ \- without arousing suspicion,” the last of his whiskey drained, the Premier was left to consider the empty glass as the delicacy of the proposition settled into a pause while Phryne attempted to make solid sense of his entire meaning. 

 

As ever, she addressed the question head on.

 

“Am I to understand, Mr Hogan, that you wish me to ingratiate myself to Italian society and cultivate a love affair with this man - real or imagined - that might convince his compatriots that he has taken to Australia for more romantic reasons than political betrayal?” Her brows might have delivered her scepticism, but the tilt of her lips betrayed her incurable curiosity. 

 

“That sounds about the long and short of it, yes,” he looked up at her, meeting her challenge with forthrightness of his own. 

 

“That _sounds_ like the poorly-developed plot of a Penny Dreadful,” she countered. 

 

“Fact is often as surprising as fiction, Miss Fisher, you of all should know that,” he said. She narrowed her eyes.

 

“Often, it is more so.” It was not clear if she was referring to the ruse itself, or the meeting in which it had been presented to her. 

 

“You would, of course, be well compensated, to say nothing of the honour of a grateful nation,” he trailed off, as though merely greasing the wheels of her decision-making.

 

“Naturally,” she responded, less impressed with those promises than the chance to bring a little zest to proceedings. She took a moment to consider the scenario, evaluate the risks and consider the adventure, but it was clear after a moment that Premier Hogan had won, “All right. I’m in.”

 

“Excellent! Thank you Phryne, you don’t know what this means - ” 

 

“On one condition,” she interrupted, causing his halt and a querying brow that creased with a little worry. Conditions from Phryne Fisher were always a little dangerous. “What are you not telling me?”

 

Whatever he had been imagining, _this_ request seemed to make him genuinely uncomfortable. He paused and then, “It’s not so much a matter of not telling as -” 

 

“I want all the details, or you can count me out. As fond as I am of throwing myself into unpredictable situations, I like to have at least a basic grasp of what I’m dealing with.” 

 

“Well, you needn’t worry too much, I’m sure with the assistance of your travelling companion there won’t be much trouble,” he offered clumsily in an attempt to reinforce the request for her assistance. It did not have the desired effect, Phryne’s neck arching very slightly at his remark and her grip tightening ever so subtly around her glass. 

 

“ _What_ travelling companion?” she demanded immediately. 

 

“Of course, you couldn’t expect,” he started on the back foot, “after all, a woman alone - ” Phryne’s eyes widened to a state wildly closely to offence, prompting increasing alarm in her _current_ companion. “What I mean to say is -!” he faltered. 

 

“I assure you, Mr Hogan,” she clipped, suddenly formally, bristling at both his insinuation and his presumption, “I am perfectly able to take care of myself.” 

 

To his merit, the Premier seemed to recognise his error. 

 

“That’s all very well, Phryne,” he dared not voice the skepticism that threatened to colour his tone despite his efforts and found another excuse to press her into accepting proper assistance by retrieving their former ease of conversation, “but it would looked damned irresponsible for me to send you off to Italy by yourself all the same.” He peered into his whiskey with a gruffness that seemed to punctuate his point. After a moment, Phryne shrugged, finding the tedium of arguing the matter a deterrent to pressing him further. She refused to be dissuaded from at least expressing her dissatisfaction with the situation, however. 

“So, _who_ were you planning on saddling me with then?” the interrogation continued, despite his efforts to thwart it. 

 

“Richard Armstr - “

 

“ _Absolutely not,_ ” she cut him short, seemingly knowing the answer before he had begun to speak it and tossing her head to the side as though it were an insult to her. “I flatly refuse to spend a single day in Rome with a man who could spend an entire evening at Molly’s Autumn Soirée so wholly intent on a discussion of agriculture, to say _nothing_ of the voyage.” 

 

“He’s a political attaché, his expertise would be invaluable to you.”

 

“Only if my tactics involved boring Il Duce to a point of desperation,” she said, “pick again Mr Hogan.” 

 

“You know him socially, so your travelling with him would not be overly suspicious,” he was leaning forward in his chair now, a politician’s way of imploring if ever it had been seen.

 

“I know many men socially. I said _pick again.”_

 

“Phryne please, I won’t be at ease unless I know you’re in capable hands. I need a man who can think on his feet, has a sense of duty and a knack for getting around a tricky situation. You’ve got to be prepared for any eventuality, and so must he. I also wouldn’t say ‘no’ to a strong right hook…”

 

“Ned,” Phryne stopped him in the closest thing to a panic the Premier had ever been in, and grinned, acquiescing to an old request to call him by his first name.

 

“Yes?” he dared. 

 

Her head was suddenly tilted with that forceful surety that was so very often about her face and so very seldom _denied,_ “I know _just_ the man.” 

 

***

 

“No,” said Detective Inspector John ‘Jack’ Robinson, “No, no and _no_.” 

 

“But Jack, you’re the absolutely perfect choice!” Phryne returned with no less enthusiasm, “You’ve just the wits about you and I dare say that pale skin of yours could do with an Italian Spring.”

 

Jack looked self-consciously down at his hands, as though they might solve the mystery of Miss Fisher’s consistent need to all but change the subject while she was making a point. It was but a momentary lapse, and he shook his head as the red herring proved close to distracting him and forged ahead with his defence against her latest barrage of convincing logic. “Need I remind you, Miss Fisher, that I am a _policeman_ -” 

 

“A Detective-Inspector no less,” she flirted dangerously with flattery, but he continued undeterred by her more predictable tactics.

 

“And _as such_ , I have duties that require my attention - my _consistent_ attention - and I do not make a habit of abandoning them on a whim,” though his words seemed heated, they remained atop his unflappable deadpan delivery like a conversation about the weather. Equally infuriating was his posture, seated casually as he was behind his desk with his arms now folded, as though to eradicate any evidence that her comments on his tan had affected him in the slightest. As his blue eyes fixed her with the kind of gaze that she was sure was meant to accuse _her_ of such flippancy, his brows rose with a slight tick that challenged her to respond. 

 

“ _Whims_ , Inspector, are the very essence of life,” she returned with equal force of opinion, though she reserved her thoughts on duty for another time; she had learned a lot about dedication to duty and its consequences at the Front. She kept her conversation light, sparking cheekily at the end of it, “At least it is for those who will _live_ it.” 

 

She could feel his eyes narrow. 

 

“Nevertheless,” he deflected, “they are the privilege of those without places to keep, and are of little use to the likes of me.”

 

“You’re worse than Dot,” she muttered, hoping the comparison would highlight just how very _delicate_ he was being at this moment. While he did not immediately respond, his deep breath in assured her that she had hit her mark at least partially. She smiled triumphantly at him and glibly undid whatever work she had done. It was foolishness to gloat before the fight was truly done.

 

“Then you are surrounded by people of _good sense_ ,” he all but scolded, resolute in the face of her smug sense of victory, “and would do well to follow fewer whims.” 

 

A frown appeared on her brow, the sort that was not often found about her face, and signalled a sense of being uncomfortably thwarted in her game. That it was most prevalent around a certain Detective Inspector was a matter that was much too complicated to consider for any _real_ length of time. 

 

Before long, she was onto the next line of attack. 

 

“Well,” she seemed genuinely disappointed, “I had hoped that you might _want_ to come along, but if you insist on being difficult, you leave me no choice.” 

 

Jack felt his stomach catch in the heady mixture of curiosity and terror that always seemed to surround his Lady Detective, and was tainted on this occasion by a betraying sense of regret that he might truly have disappointed her. Propositions that included Phryne having ‘no choice’ sounded distinctly unpleasant for a multiplicity of reasons, but the primary amongst them was the feeling that whatever she could cook up when she _did_ have a choice was frequently horrifying enough. 

 

“What?” he pressed cautiously. 

 

“You’ve already been assigned,” she shrugged, as though the fun had quite gone out of the game. 

 

“What?” his caution was quickly replaced with a kind of restrained outrage. 

 

“At the Premier’s request,” she tilted her head in the way she so often did, in the way that seemed to speak of sweetness and innocence and childlike uncomplication that was purview of less worldly women. That she managed it so effortlessly, with such convictionand with so little guile, baffled him still. 

 

“Right,” he returned, unsure what exactly he had to say to that. While he hated resignation, there truly was little he could do to resist the task, save losing his position, and a little voice begged that there were worse things in the world than accompanying Miss Fisher to Italy. 

 

“Don’t worry, Jack,” she grinned brightly at his acquiescence, as though it hadn’t been obtained through a carefully constructed extortion, “you’re safe with me!”

 

Her enthusiasm was contagious and Jack found himself pandering to the latter of his internal voices, as he seemed to be doing more and more of late. As she swept from his office with all the flair of her obvious excitement, he had to admit to himself that, whatever she said, there were parts of him that would _never_ be safe with the Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher. 


	2. An Adventure Unfolds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack's none to happy about the way things are unravelling around him, but Phryne's eyes are for the horizon, and she won't be dissuaded. Mr Butler has a quiet word as Dot struggles all the more with the pressing question of leaving Australia (and her darling constable) behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to those who have commented so far! I really appreciate it. :) With the narrative down, hopefully this chapter delves a little more into those character dynamics that we love. Thankfully, a little more research has revealed a great deal more on the journey from Melbourne to Genoa, and I am delighted to announce that the trip actually took a much more manageable thirty to forty days! As though I needed another reason to admire the Suez Canal. While I am still inclined to make a fic of the voyage, at least we won’t have to worry about missing quite that much of Jack and Phryne in a confined space. Anyway, onwards. Enjoy!

The meeting with the Chief Commissioner had not gone at all as Jack had hoped. He had put his concerns about his departure to the man with his usual respectful forthrightness, but just as he had suspected, with the order coming from the top, his concerns had been neatly dealt with. His position would be there for him when he returned, his income and responsibilities catered for in his absence. Everything had been taken care of, and not by him. The other information he had garnered shed some light on the Premier’s peculiar request for his services, but it had also entrenched the sensation of his feeling ill-at-ease about the entire affair. He had been stunned by the news as Miss Fisher had so neatly deposited it in his lap the afternoon before; for all her usual unpredictability, her schemes had never been quite so far-reaching in their execution, nor so dangerous in their high-stake intricacies.

This was not some thug on the pier, or a room full of socialites. This wasn’t even a highly-intelligent madman, hellbent on a grimly superstitious entrance into the Great Beyond. 

In the same way Jack would have traded that room full of socialites for a sound whack to the head with a lead pipe, he would have traded this proposition for any of the dangers he and Miss Fisher had encountered thus far. It was a serious matter, considering the number of close calls they had so narrowly escaped - the memory of Phryne’s unconscious figure in his arms was not one easily dispelled - but the parameters of this mission begged to test those limits. Jack knew what it was like to be in the thick of his enemies, he had seen the trenches, done his time at the Front. It was a world of constant fear, and even then, he had been able to spot the opposing force by the cut of their uniforms. What he was being asked to step into? It was a world of shadows, a game of deception played in an arena where one could never be sure which faces were players. Worse still, it was right in the thick of enemy territory and totally under their command. He had heard rumours amongst the migrant communities about Mussolini’s tactics of policing, and had certainly encountered his fair share of misplaced distrust when it came to facing officers of the law. 

He was worried. 

Of course, Phryne had been to war as well, not in combat, but she had seen it all, and he had rarely known her to be out of her depth. It wasn’t the finishing schools and high society drawing rooms that had given her a nose for trouble, it was the dreadful reality that had seemed to follow her from birth and she had taken it all in stride. She seemed to be in possession of an endless silo of fortitude and cunning, not to mention her considerable intellect and unmatchable wit. The fact of the matter was, however, that whatever she faced, she did so with such an apparent lack of care for her own safety, Jack could not help the pressing fear that her good fortune must run its course eventually. The multitude of horrid possibilities surrounding this assignment had crowded his thoughts and kept him from arguing his involvement with her further the day before, especially when she had so casually brought down the Premier’s request on their conversation and taken the wind from his sails. 

She knew he was a man of duty who took his orders from the chain of command.

In truth, it stuck a little, like a twig under his wing. It was not unlike Phryne to upset his plans, either through impenetrable logic, or flagrant disobedience, but crossing the boundaries of a crime scene, or alleviating said scene of evidence - which would undoubtedly resurface at a later stage - were different matters entirely to derailing the steady work that had kept him since the war. For all that he had deflated in arguing with her about the matter, she had failed to answer any of his objections about abandoning his post. As much as he tried to avoid it, thoughts of Rosie pressing him towards quieter desk work flickered in the back of his mind. While Miss Fisher would certainly never demand tedium from him, the sidelining of his own choice in the matter was much the same. He refused to give too much thought to the fact that he had allowed Miss Fisher into the same space in his mind that his ex-wife had always occupied. Hat in hand, he intended to address this concern with her as quickly as possible, and with as much professionalism as could counter her apparent disregard for it . 

It was mayhem about number 221B, however, and whatever Jack had been planning to say, it was muddled by the business about the entrance hall. Mr Butler was not there to greet him and he all but tripped over Cec and Bert as they moved passed him and into the parlour with a trunk so large, he wondered immediately whether or not they had hidden the rest of the household in it. He could hear the bustle of the others, however, lurking in other rooms, packing he assumed. He could hear Mr Butler’s clear, strong voice from the kitchen instructing Dot to be careful with the Countess Crockery - what in Heaven’s name could she have planned that she needed to bring her own crockery?

“Hello Jack!” she descended from above like a lark with her usual jovial greeting. 

“Miss Fisher,” he returned, his frown indicating his thoughts almost as much as the seriousness of his voice, “I see you’re wasting no time at all.” 

“Why delay?” she asked as she reached the landing in a perfectly embroidered housecoat, a peacock-feather pattern twining elegantly around the cuffs of her sleeves and collar. Silk slippers peeked out from beneath the hem, and Jack realised that it must still be early in her day. 

“I’m informed that the boat won’t leave until Friday, at least,” he reasoned. 

“It’s Tuesday, Jack. It never hurts to be prepared,” she shrugged. At that point, Cec and Bert returned with a second trunk, arguably larger than the first and Jack eyed it as they passed. 

“I doubt there’ll be room aboard for us all to be quite that prepared,” he smirked despite himself. When he looked up, however, to see that his retort had hit home, he found her smiling instead. It was warm and the brightness of her eyes matched as she clapped her hands together with joy. 

“I am delighted to hear that you’re coming,” she enthused. Jack frowned, somewhat confused by the statement, considering it was she who had yesterday made it so clear that he hardly had a choice in the matter. 

“I thought that was the idea,” he reminded her. 

“Yes, but when I heard you were meeting with the Chief Commissioner this morning, I thought it was touch and go,” she confided with perfect frankness, “he can be such a gullible old thing, and we all know that you can be terribly convincing.” The temperature in her smile seemed to escalate as she passed him, brushing her fingers absent-mindedly across his forearm with her last words. If it was a tactic of hers, he could not see to what end she was trying to manipulate him. Though, guessing when Phryne was being serious and when she was not was about as easy as teaching a kangaroo the Foxtrot, and perhaps equally ridiculous unless she intended to show it. 

He realised he was standing alone in the entrance hall. His hat was also growing slightly misshapen in his grip. 

“Miss Fisher, I meant to call in and speak to you about yesterday,” he said, following into the drawing room as though he had not missed a beat. She was not there and he turned to look about him, only to see her emerging from the kitchen with a piece of paper in hand, which she scoured intensely. 

“Hmmm?” she offered, clearly paying little attention. Perhaps this had been a poor time. He reminded himself that her habits were unlikely to produce much by way of a more suitable one; in this instance, the first moment he was likely to find would be aboard the ship!

“Phryne,” he stated bluntly, fixing her with a determined gaze. She looked up at once, noting the tone in his voice. 

“Yes, Jack?” the paper went limp in her hand. 

“Yesterday?” he prompted. 

“What about it?” she asked. 

“I spoke with the Chief Commissioner this morning, and -”

“I know, I just sai-” confusion seemed to be gathering about her face and Jack stopped her with a sharp look. She quietened. He was about to continue, when a realisation struck him and his own confusion took centre stage. 

“How did you know I was meeting with the Chief Commissioner?” 

“I told you, I heard it this morning,” she said as though it answered his question. 

“From whom?” he supplied quickly. Phryne could not help the smile. 

“Constable Collins has been very helpful with some of the heavy lifting,” she said. Jack took in a breath, readying himself to start in on her tendency for challenging the loyalty of his constable, but he knew all too well that it would only lead him in the wrong direction and away from the purpose of his visit.  
“He mentioned that the Premier had asked for me by name after a meeting held at his Parliamentary office,” he said, his lips coming together in the slight pout she had noticed when he asked leading questions. She was tempted for a moment to make light of the ambiguity of his statement and joke that she did not know that Hugh had been promoted to office work. The look on Jack’s face told her that being intentionally obtuse was not the order of this day, no matter how splendidly it worked on others. They both knew that he was referring to the Chief Commissioner and she immediately tried to avoid talking about it. She folded the piece of paper, grasping it between both hands and glancing about her as though she did not know quite what he was driving at. Jack did not move, “That meeting, I later found out, was with you.” 

Phryne looked up at him from beneath her lashes, holding the pause seemingly for effect. He wondered fleetingly whether she’d deny it.

“Yes. Yes it was,” she finally conceded. Their eyes met in that familiar tension that seemed to serve a multiplicity of purposes, each indistinguishable from the next. 

“Hardly a glowing endorsement from the Premier directly,” he concluded, knowing full well that she understood his meaning. 

“I made a small suggestion, Jack,” she defended, throwing her hands up as though it was nothing at all. 

“A small suggestion that resulted in the very outcome you wanted and one that came before you had even broached the subject with me,” he countered. “A small suggestion that now has the full weight of Cabinet behind it and very little room to move,” his head was tilted forward in accusation. 

Phryne shifted a little uncomfortably and Jack felt, as he too often did, that she had felt the force of his disapproval before he had a chance to verbalise it. He supposed it was natural to one who so easily read others. Saying what he had intended to now would only drive the point home in a manner that felt a little like kicking a puppy. The look on her face ought to be a hanging offence. He knew it had prevented her from hearing exactly what she ought to from the likes of him for Heaven knew how many years.

He indulged her nonetheless, much the way he had the first time she had bandied his name about on the Ballarat train.

“I suppose we had better discuss exactly how we plan to approach this,” he said, forging ahead to take the lead on the situation in any way that he could. Phryne smiled at once, all earnestness, and he suddenly questioned his earlier summation that knowing when she was being sincere was difficult. 

She seemed to wear her emotions so brashly at times. 

“An excellent idea, Inspector,” she said, her shoulders visibly relaxing. And then, “I really am just so glad that you’re here.” 

xXx 

It was not the usual run of things for Hugh Collins to spend his days off carrying boxes of ladies unmentionables, and as soon as he had been able, he had left Cec and Bert to the task of dealing with Miss Fisher’s rapidly increasing number of trunks. After all, the purpose of his visit had been to see Dot and, with her in the kitchen under Mr Butler’s watchful eyes, and he traipsing up and down stairs, there had been little opportunity to do that. He had got wind of the conversation that had ensued between the Inspector and the woman who had seemingly become a permanent fixture in his office, the conclusion of which had yet to be determined, he was assured by the other men at the station. 

As much as Jack would hate to learn of it, the boys at City South had taken to running bets - of the purely recreational kind, of course - as to which party would walk away the victor at the end of each ‘Miss Fisher Entanglement’. What had begun as a tentative concern as to the Inspector’s fortitude and masculinity in repelling this seeming annoyance, had grown to an almost familial game, in which Miss Fisher’s considerable charms had led to the light-hearted tally of ‘wins’. Hugh would never tell Jack how divided his staff’s loyalties were on the matter, and would never allow himself the liberty to reflect on how the relationship affected the Inspector’s relationship with his superiors at the Victorian Constabulary. On this occasion, however, the jury was still out, Miss Fisher having seemingly won the battle, with the war still in the balance. Hugh had glowed with pride that the Inspector had not simply acquiesced, his meeting with the Chief Commissioner a sign that the fight was still in him. Hugh always took some joy in that fight, since his own against the woman’s direct attentions almost always succumbed to an embarrassing sort of malleability. 

Of course, the promise of some victory had meant nothing when he had thought a little further on the proposition. 

Whatever Inspector Robinson’s intentions regarding Miss Fisher’s trip abroad - and the reasons for her wanting him to accompany her, which remained a tantalising secret - he knew the Lady Detective would be off in a shot, and the reality of that hit him with a force he did not quite know how to handle when he realised the potential consequences. It had become imperative that he seek out an answer to his immediate fears. 

Men from the Continent were famed for their charms. The majority of them were Catholics. He couldn’t speak Italian. 

“Dottie,” he interrupted from the back door to the kitchen. 

“Just a minute, Hugh,” she returned, looking impressively unflappable despite the fact that Hugh knew she was a little flustered by the activity that bustled through the house, “if I don’t get this collection of Crockery together soon, we’ll be behind schedule.” 

Hugh didn’t dare ask what might happen if they got behind schedule. 

His need to know, however, trumped his concerns about it and after a moment of faltering uncomfortably in the doorway as she continued about her task, he pressed ahead. “I just need to talk to you about this,” he stated firmly. He could see her hand halt above the piece of paper on which she was cataloguing pieces, the telltale way her lips rolled together when she was nervous. 

“I - I can’t right now,” she said as she pushed the pen down again and furrowed her brow. It was hurtful to him, though she had not said very much at all, but he didn’t know how to turn the situation around and get her to acquiesce without being more forceful. There was nothing on earth he could imagine that might be worse than being forceful with Dot. Silence hung between them as she consumed herself in her work.

“But, don’t you think we ought to sort this through?” he found the words coming out of his mouth without prompting them to do so, facing his own surprise at them as much as he faced the tipping point of her being unable to bear the problem. She stood a little too quickly, her face flushing pink as she picked up the tray of cups and saucers. 

“I really do have work to do, Hugh.” 

xXx

Having convinced Jack to let her change and eat before they discussed his details, Phryne found that she was extraordinarily grateful for Mr Butler’s fortifying, two-tier lemon pudding. The one o’clock luncheon was supposed to be a small affair, soup and sandwiches with the best of them, but - as with anything else - Phryne was not inclined to deny herself for tastes of others. 

She had pudding when she wanted it. 

That Jack seemed perfectly content in polishing off his own serving, continued to solidify the deep-seated suspicion she had developed after working with him for some time that he was the very best sort of man. 

“It’s wickedly good, isn’t it?” she said, watching as he settled the last morsel in his mouth, her own plate empty and her hands neatly wrapped in her lap in demure contrast to the mischievous sparkle in her eyes. Finishing his mouthful and caught in a moment in which he was unable to respond immediately - a tactic he believed Miss Fisher had honed to an art - he settled back into his chair with an air of contented nonchalance. He placed his spoon down as he finally finished off the remnants of what could be described as ‘Heaven in a Bowl’ and returned her gaze. 

“Isn’t that somewhat an oxymoron, Miss Fisher?” he dabbed at his mouth with his napkin in a way that convinced her she was right. Had he been a cat, she could have seen him cleaning his whiskers. She made no attempt to hide the fact that she enjoyed watching him do it. 

“You know me, I’m hardly about to let the threat of error step in the way of properly expressing myself,” she picked up her glass of fruit wine with a smirk, knowing how fond he was of the English language, “not even the threat of grammatical ones.”

“It’s no wonder, then,” he commented enigmatically. Phryne tilted her head in query when he didn’t continue immediately, unable to guess where he was going. “That there are so many who have a hard time understanding you,” he finished.

She chuckled at that, consistently warmed by his light-hearted side. When first she’d waltzed into his crime scene, she had pegged him for a terrible bore. She had been delighted to discover that beneath Inspector Robinson’s quaint regard for the regulations - which she hesitated to suggest had become inexplicably charming in and of itself - there lingered a mischief as ready as hers, if not quite as visible. She savoured the ambiguity in his words for the rarity it was, a punctuated flirtatious moment in their discourse that she laid gently down beside the others that had been tallied in their working relationship. The number was growing steadily larger, and certainly the rate of the increase had become exponential of late. Her curiosity about this was undeniable, but she had not yet reached the point of wanting to tamper with their dynamic. 

Constable Collins had left - rather abruptly, Phryne thought, making a mental note to ask Dot about it later - and Cec and Bert had promised to return the following day after running a few of their own errands for the afternoon. With Mr Butler and Dot taking care of the luncheon dishes, Phryne and Jack settled into a rather comfortable sort of lull in the frenzy of her spontaneity. Jack was exceedingly grateful for the silence and a moment to catch his breath. Though, having her watch him so intently while he ate had made that a little more difficult than he cared to admit. So he watched her right back now, as she laughed at his subtle humour, and allowed himself to relax a little. As though she perceived it, she turned the tables on him once again. 

“All right,” she finally announced, suddenly businesslike in her approach despite the teasing that was coming, “you’ve distracted me long enough, Inspector! Wasn’t their a point to this luncheon? Or were you just using me as a pretext to get at Mr Butler’s watercress salad?” 

“It is well known what lengths I would go to for Mr Butler’s watercress salad,” Jack tilted his head in all seriousness before he shook it and turned his thoughts finally to what they had promised to discuss, “but you are correct as ever, Miss Fisher.” 

“We must, of course, decide what it is we’ll tell everyone about you,” she began, taking her pick of the intricacies that would need hashing out over the next two days, “I think having a Detective Inspector in my care might raise a few red flags, and we all know precisely how Signor Mussolini feels about red flags.” 

Phryne’s socialist leanings had kept her informed about the suppression of Communism in Italy and the rounding up of the socialist party in Rome had been no secret at all. 

“We do,” Jack said, taking a sip from his own glass of wine, “and I suppose it depends entirely on what you believe would pass the test with your connections in Rome.”

“A fledgling actor?” Phryne leapt at the opportunity, her smirk already consuming part of her bottom lip, “I could be your wealthy benefactress.”

“Do try to be serious,” Jack reprimanded, though the tilt to his lips was obvious. Phryne’s smile only broadened. 

“I am serious! Your Modern Major General would be a hit at La Scala!” she pressed with much theatricality. 

Jack did not give her the satisfaction of a response. She settled. 

“Since I frequently travelled with friends, I see no reason why we couldn’t pass you off as one of Melbourne’s society boys,” she said, thinking genuinely aloud, “there are a great number who could use a little educating in the arts particularly. Perhaps I’ve offered you my expertise whilst on tour?”

Jack nodded as he thought it through, since his inexperience with local culture would then be an asset rather than a weakness, “Yes, that could be passable.” 

“Well, you could, perhaps, but your wardrobe,” she hesitated, not wanting to offend him, “would need a few additional items.” 

Jack took a breath, as though to speak, but halted as a frown caused him to look down at his current suit before he gathered the politesse to respond, “I didn’t realise my style of dress was so - deficient.” 

“Not at all!” Phryne quickly assured him, “It’s just a matter of Italian taste. That’s of little importance, however, I am sure we will forge ahead.” 

As though to make a point of ensuring that they did not forge ahead, Mr Butler appeared to collect the remaining dishes, without the slightest look of curiosity about him. Jack withdrew his hands from the table and smiled, refusing to engage in further conversation nonetheless until the man was out of the room. Whilst he was sure Miss Fisher would trust her butler with anything, this was not anything. In fact, Jack wondered suddenly what exactly Phryne had trusted her little band to know, and as soon as the coast was clear, he put that thought to words.

“What have you told your staff?” he hated the word, and Phryne did too by the quirk of a brow. 

“Exactly what I ought to,” she said, “I’m off on a tour of Italy with my dear friend Mr Agostini to visit old friends and will be back when the wind blows us by.” 

“And your explanation of my accompanying you?” he pressed. 

“I haven’t yet broached it with them,” she replied, “you’ll recall that it wasn’t until this morning that I was sure of your going. What did you tell Constable Collins?”

“I explained that it was a matter of state business and therefore none of his,” Jack countered simply with a smile, “the police force has little room for constables who spend too much time asking ‘why’.” 

Phryne rolled her eyes, “That could be a slight hindrance to good policing, if you ask me.”

“Yes, well, the limitation on questions relates only to those directed at superiors,” he defended with a smile. “Won’t you be expected to travel with some household staff?”

“Yes,” Phryne ventured, looking down at the table, “Mr Butler will certainly be along after we’ve closed up the house, and I’ve put the invitation to Dot, though she is characteristically hesitant.” Her eyes lifted to catch his gaze as he pondered the ramifications of what she had just said. 

He assumed that the invitation to come along had not been braced with a warning about the dangers involved. Phryne seemed to share his concerns by the look she gave him, but she had clearly not yet decided what could be done about it. Part of her now sincerely hoped that Dot would follow her first instinct and remain behind. When she had first pressed her companion, it was not with the knowledge of just how intricate the endeavour would become. 

“I am sure a solution will present itself,” Jack finally answered, and Phryne could only nod in agreement. 

That seemed to be the way of things in her world. 

xXx

“Dorothy,” Mr Butler began, broaching the subject that had risen in his concern with unfailing discretion, “Forgive me, but I believe that plate is well and truly dry.”

“Oh,” Dot blinked, her thoughts anywhere but present as the pair of them took to righting the kitchen after luncheon. She stood now wiping idly at droplets that had long-since vanished from the dish in her hands, and the realisation forced her into a small, embarrassed smile, “Yes.” 

She picked up the next, her brow furrowing once more over the task. 

They stood in silence for a moment, Mr Butler casting his glance over at intervals that proved effective for his reconnaissance. Had Phryne been aware of his uncanny knack for observation, she might have put him to work outside the kitchen. Once he was certain what must be occupying the young maid’s thoughts, he turned back to watching the soap suds move around the hands that left his rolled-up sleeves. His brows rose gently in subtle query as he began again. 

“Do you know,” he offered softly, “I can’t help but feel a little unsure about this whole business.” 

Dot looked up at him, thoroughly surprised. In all the time that Mr Butler had worked for Miss Fisher, Dot could name not a single incident in which he had questioned her judgment. Now, his comment sailed perilously close to that wind, which Dot felt was the height of disloyalty, a fact that supplied a steady reason for her guilt at thinking exactly the same. 

“I am sure Miss Fisher knows precisely what she’s doing,” she defended with a strength more forceful than she intended. 

“I do not doubt it,” he assured her, continuing at his leisure, scrubbing at a bowl and speaking with dispassionate openness, “and I am certain she is well-equipped to take the full measure of the whole affair, but it does strike as a little beyond the usual escapade. Were it not for my own position of disconnect, what with Mrs Butler gone, I should certainly think it through most thoroughly before committing to it.”

Dot hesitated, knowing quickly what he was getting at and most grateful for his branch of support, even as it involved speaking potentially ill of their employer’s current scheme. That obstacle glued her tongue to the roof of her mouth for what seemed an age, and again the silence settled until her considerations concluded that Mr Butler was uniquely positioned to help her. It would be thoroughly ungrateful not to accept his gracious understanding - certainly since his advice where Hugh was involved had previously been of such value. 

“It is - an unusually long journey,” she began, her tone laced with uncertainty, “I’ve certainly thought about how long we would be away.” 

“Yes,” Mr Butler acknowledged gravely. 

“And it would be difficult to manage one’s affairs from such a distance,” she tried to fashion her thoughts in the abstract, feeling a little subconscious as she almost stumbled over the word ‘affairs’, “family cares and the like, I mean.” 

“Certainly,” the sound of sloshing water seemed about all he was ready to add until she came out with it. 

“I mean, I know we’ll be back, but it’s almost like going away for good,” she looked back at her plate. 

“The interruption in certain matters especially, might be considered permanent,” he accepted, furthering the idea in a way that might make it more comfortable for Dot to talk about it, “after all, family might not be in a position to let you go, or other matters of equal importance might be interrupted by such a departure, certain pertinent… investments perhaps?”

“Yes!” Dot leapt at that moniker a little too enthusiastically when she saw her opportunity to speak in euphemism and she had to train her response back, “S - supposing it was a limited offer investment? That required your being present to take full advantage of the… opportunity?” 

Mr Butler glanced at her sideways, pausing as he thought his words through, encoding as he went, “It might be so if others are anxious to move ahead with the endeavour. Though, if it is a sound investment, I see no reason why it should not remain a good opportunity for some time to come.” 

“No. I suppose that is true,” Dot said, “but there are a lot of opportunities out there, and something else - some other possibility - might present itself in the mean time?” 

Mr Butler frowned then, his sentiments on ‘other possibilities’ entirely clear when it came to Dot. If Constable Collins thought any ‘other possibility’ might suit him better than this one, he deserved whatever trifling thing he ended up with. His voice was intent as he spoke to the girl’s insecurities, “I doubt such a ‘once in a lifetime’ proposal is so easily repeatable elsewhere in a matter of months.” 

Dot blinked at the compliment, feeling herself flush for the kind words; her mother’s war against vanity had made her a stranger to such compliments. “All the same,” she said through her shy but grateful smile, “wouldn’t it be… bad business to require everyone to put the entire matter on hold?” 

Mr Butler nodded, now comprehending the anxiety surrounding the matter more thoroughly. “Certainly it would be unexpected,” he suggested, “but whether that was a matter of bad business would depend entirely on business relations.” 

Dot stopped then, unable to communicate adequately what she was feeling in code. She was not sure of the status of business relations, she was note sure of the nature of the investment either. It seemed conceit on her part to believe it ‘once in a lifetime’, as Mr Butler had, alongside all the ramifications of such a proposal. She felt warm under the collar just thinking that way. 

She simply was not sure. 

Mr Butler seemed to sense this about her hesitation as he handed over the final dish and reached the end of his task. It was difficult to know what to say. Dorothy must make this decision for herself and no one else. Of that he was undoubtedly sure. But it was also a matter of lives, not larks, and he understood very well how much pressure she must be feeling. He decided that there was only one thing, really, that ought to come of it, and he encouraged her in the only area in which he could see her decision-making lacking. 

“Well, one thing is for certain,” he challenged, turning away from the sink with a towel to dry his hands, “nothing at all will come from not talking to the other investors.” 

xXx 

The City South Police Station seemed unusually daunting that morning, and Dot clutched her purse more tightly in her hands as she steeled her nerve for the conversation she realised must occur as soon as possible. She had been left with the night to consider both what Miss Fisher had said to her about the upcoming adventure and what Mr Butler had surreptitiously urged her to do around the sanctity of the sink. Whatever fears she held about the decision before her, she must make them known if she wished to deal with it at all constructively. It would be a test, she’d decided, of the increasing resolve that she had recaptured after her constant walking on eggshells around John Andrews. A test of everything that Miss Fisher had brought into her life. 

A test, also, of the burgeoning trust she had in her constable and her ability to share things with him. 

The fact of the matter, she had finally admitted to herself, was that she wanted to go. It was an opportunity that had been presented to her by sheer fortune and to turn her nose up at it would be folly of the highest order. She had been granted a chance at the extraordinary, and if she could not take it, then she did not deserve it or the impossibly brilliant woman who had pressed it into her path. Extraordinary things were extraordinary precisely for the reason that ordinary people feared them, and if she was to be anything but ordinary, then this was her chance to prove it. She wanted more, not because Hugh was not enough, or that the life she might live with him was beneath her, but because life was giving her something else as well and she wanted to seize it with both hands. 

“Good morning, Hugh,” she said resolutely as she entered the building and saw him bending carefully over the front desk, scribbling something into his notebook. 

“Dottie,” he blurted as he saw her. It was early yet, she had to return to the house in good time to assist Miss Phryne with another project of the utmost importance, and she had taken what little time she had left. There was no one else at the entrance, but she got the feeling, as Hugh turned to check behind him, that there were others on duty round the back. 

“I didn’t want to interrupt,” she quickly apologised as she realised that the meeting might not be appropriate while he was on duty. 

“No!” he hurried, anxious not to let her go now that she seemed willing to talk with him, “no, it’s all right.”

“I just,” she started again, “I just thought we ought to talk about Miss Fisher’s… trip abroad.” 

“Right,” Hugh acknowledged, glancing once more behind him before suggesting they perhaps move the conversation away from the entrance. He enlisted the help of another constable to watch the phone and any incoming visitors, and then ushered her through to one of the rooms used for routine questioning. Dot tried not to make anything of the fact that it was the frequent sight of aggressive interrogation. Hugh watched her expectantly. 

“Right,” she echoed back to him. There was a pause as her surety left her. She shut her mouth at once. Eternity passed. 

“Dot, I -” “Hugh, I -” 

Nervous laughter. She took a breath and tried to swallow her fear as she rolled her lips together. 

“Hugh,” she began again, resolute, “Miss Fisher has asked me to accompany her to Rome.” While they both knew the problem, stating it was a start, and she felt like it ordered the thoughts that came after. Hugh nodded slowly, his eyes casting downward for a moment and shaking Dot’s footing. she wanted to run to him, forget the whole thing and go to the pictures. Well, after he was released from duty. And after she had assisted Miss Fisher with her remaining tasks. And helped wrap those items she was taking aboard as cabin wear. Dot shook her head. Focus. She thought of Phryne, and then, “And I’d really like to go.” 

Hugh looked crestfallen. He trained his glance on a spot on the floor and braced his fingers against his palms. It was the absolute worst possible reaction, and Dot felt her stomach fall to the ground. She froze, her words sticking well and truly in her throat. 

“I understand,” he said finally, the tremor in his voice unmistakable. Dot had to remind herself to talk it through, to assume nothing.

“I know it’s a lot to ask of you,” she pressed gently on.

Hugh nodded slowly before he took in her words and lurched up in surprise, “Of me?!”

Dot frowned, panicked by his sudden outburst, but also unsure what she had said to prompt such a response, “Yes, I had thought - oh, you’re right, it’s too much. I’m sorry!” She covered her face with her hands. Hugh simply stared at her, trying to make sense of everything that was happening. 

“Why would it be asking a lot of me?” he tried put it to her plainly, “It would be selfish of me to ask you - I would have thought - ”

“It’s so terribly selfish of me,” she accused herself, “I mean, after everything, to ask you to wait -” She couldn’t say it now. It sounded horrid, outlandish. Hugh’s eyes brightened at once, latching on to her last. 

“To wait?” he rushed, suddenly overwhelmed, grasping for words for a second, “Dottie, of course I’ll wait!” She looked up at him, blinking now in shock. It wasn’t the response she had expected at all. She searched his face, but found only exuberant joy and she wondered how it had happened. “I -” he felt foolish, as he so often did when it came to her, “I thought you’d come to tell me that this was it.” 

Dot paled, shaking her head emphatically, “No! I came to apologise! Leaving you in the lurch like this for Heaven knows how long. It’s, it’s awful, really.” Hugh laughed with delighted grace. 

“It’s not awful,” he said simply, calming now that he knew what it was she wanted from him, “It’s an adventure.” An adventure that required the presence of Detective Inspector Robinson, he suddenly thought, and all the nerves he had felt before about good Catholic husbands became worry about what would require the presence of Detective Inspector Robinson. 

Dot beamed at him, excitement braking through all the boundaries she had built for it since Monday, and before she knew where she was or what she was doing, she had rushed across the room and was kissing him soundly and erasing most of his thoughts. “Oh Hugh,” she gushed, “thank you.” 

He was content to be thanked in that many at any time of day, but he became acutely aware of where they were and swiftly put his hands on her shoulders and gently moved her to a more appropriate space. “You’re welcome,” he said awkwardly and then reconsidered it, “I mean, I don’t know what I mean.” He grinned. 

“I’d better be getting back,” she finished neatly for him, “Miss Fisher has something urgent that needs doing before tomorrow. I suspect it has something to do with the Inspector.” She didn’t think long on it. Hugh did, however, growing suddenly nervous again. 

“Dottie,” he ventured, “Do you know what this is about?”

“If I had reason to believe that it was anything other than what I had been told, Hugh Collins, I’d be inclined to ask the person I doubted,” she returned with a smile. 

xXx

“Let me see how it looks on you!” Phryne demanded, though it was thrill that made her forceful, rather than command. 

“Right here?” Jack responded with something akin to alarm. 

“Unless you want me to scandalise you by suggesting other spots,” she said, placing her hands theatrically on her hips, “please stop acting as though the Sun News-Pictorial is about to march through my door for a front-page exclusive of you in a vest.” 

The tailor had been and done his work as swiftly as was possible to turn out garments with which Miss Fisher would be content, and Jack had to admit that - despite the fact that he had complained bitterly about not being able to employ his own man - the end result was impressive. With a frown to chastise her impatience and her tone, he pulled off his coat and drew a brand new blazer from the box on her chaise longue. It was a linen of rich cream - a thoroughly impractical colour to Jack’s mind - with a lining of spun silk meant entirely for leisure. He took a deep breath in, thinking how much it must have cost her and feeling thoroughly uncomfortable about it as he pulled it on. 

“Oh, it’s practically perfect! Mr Harper has done a superb job, it’s just the thing for a Summer night or a stroll on deck,” she brightened as he stood with his head tilted, as though to ask if she were quite satisfied. She began to pace around him, rather like she was sizing up a portion of meat at the butcher’s, and when he expected her to pass more commentary, she stayed uncharacteristically silent. It was thoroughly unnerving. He had to speak at once, or risk shifting in his feeling of her gaze on him. 

“I will never understand, Miss Fisher, your fascination with dressing me,” he muttered gruffly as she gestured for him to lift his arms to look at the cut. She seemed unfazed by his apparent discomfort with her examination, however, and stepped forward to straighten his lapels. 

“If you’d prefer Inspector,” her fingers lingered in their hold on his attire in direct contrast to the flippancy in her voice, her eyes slipped quickly upward with impish intent, “I could always go in for the fascination of undressing you.” Jack stared straight back at her, guarding his expression impressively and blinking at his leisure. She was suffocatingly close, however, and would not have missed his very slight jump of surprise for all the world. It was nice to know that she still possessed the ability to shock him, even if she had to be this near to him to perceive it. 

She idly wondered what other benefits could be had from standing this near to him. 

There was little time to find out, however, since a neat collection of boxes indicated that it was not simply a blazer that was the focus of this morning before their departure. As much as Phryne adored the variety of Jack’s steady rotation of three-pieced suits, it was essential that his wardrobe pass the discerning eyes of her friends in Italy without raising suspicion. Naturally, not all were tailored exactly for him, owing to the time, but there were shirts and sporting trousers, and a darling pair of boat shoes that were an absolute must when they took the inevitable trip to the isle of Ischia, near Naples. 

“Anything further on Miss Williams?” Jack cut across her thoughts, and Phryne gave a slight sigh to think of it. 

“I’m afraid she’s being just as brave as I hoped she’d be,” she said, helping him off with the blazer and folding it neatly back into its box, “after a rousing conversation with her Constable, I gather she’s off to take the world by storm.” The irony was not lost on Phryne that the thing she most wanted and the thing she most ardently did not want, were precisely the same. 

“I see,” Jack’s face crunched into perplexity. There was another jacket, this one suitable for evening wear and a pristine navy blue. “That does present some difficulty for us,” he considered aloud. 

“Yes, I know,” Phryne replied as she stepped back to examine the new item, “whatever reason I give her - or don’t give her - regarding your coming along, it’s unlikely to last passed the first time I introduce you as Mr John ‘Jack’ Moneybags of Toffsville, North Melbourne.” 

Jack’s brows jumped upward, “Please, tell me you’re joking.” 

“I was,” Phryne grinned, “but now that you make that face…”

“I don’t suppose it would be wise to tell both she and Mr Butler the truth,” he evaded with ease as he pulled at his lapels and felt the tautness at his shoulders. Before long, Phryne was back invading his personal space. 

“He’ll have to take the shoulders out a little,” she muttered in passing, somewhat appreciatively Jack thought, which only served to make him want to loosen his tie as she placed a hand on his shoulder and attempted to determine by how much. “I think it might well be unavoidable,” she referred now to his earlier query, “I trust them both, though I had hoped to keep the circle as small as possible. If we do, I’d suggest we keep up the ruse until we’re free and clear of those who might be anxious to know, for Dot’s sake at least.” 

“That’s likely to mean waiting until we’re aboard the ship,” he reasoned, hitching a little as she gave up the guesswork and slipped a hand beneath the confines of the jacket to determine exactly where his shoulder ended. 

“I’m aware,” Phryne’s eyes met his with a brief flicker of amusement before she continued with the arguably grave discussion, “but then it’s either telling Dot the reason for leaving her behind and having her here alone and dealing with the secret, or informing her later,” she said as she continued her exploration. 

“Or not at all,” Jack supplied the third possibility, which Phryne shot down with a glance, disliking intently the thought of dismissing Dot without explanation, even to protect her. Her hand slipped down to his ribcage, feeling the hug of the tailoring to his waist. His sudden breath in was almost inaudible as he subtly reached in to collect her wandering fingers, pulling at her wrist to remove them from the intimate corners beneath his jacket as he continued, “At least with the first, she could still choose to come, and the decision would be hers to make.”

Phryne looked up at him, pausing with her wrist still in his grasp as she considered his words and the tone that rested within them. This was still about Monday’s discussion with the Premier. She stood quietly, just looking at him for a moment, and Jack found himself having to deal with unconventional nearness in addition to the usual French perfume. It was a battle quite narrowly won. 

Phryne finally acquiesced, stepping back and taking her hands with her, “I’ll tell her this evening.” 

“I think it would be best,” he said, feeling the cool of her sudden absence. She nodded with her back turned, retrieving a piece of paper to write down some measurements.

“Now,” she turned back to him, a tape measure unravelling neatly from one hand as the drop in temperature was quickly ushered away by new mischief, “why don’t we check the fit of those trousers?” 

If the devil could be contained in such a face, Jack had seen it. 

xXx

The Principessa Giovanna seemed an apt sort of name for a ship bound to carry Miss Fisher to Italy. Her neat little bow and petite frame were exactly the sort of sleek elegance that had come to be expected of the Lloyd Sabaudo line. With the opening of the Italy - Australia route, from Genoa to Fremantle, on to Melbourne and then Sydney and back again, it had become a staple in the maritime world and a well-respected one. Combining the charm of the latest Italian design with fine-dining and Continental service, it had become the premier line for expatriate travellers.

Phryne had been thoroughly delighted by the darling thing, its singular funnel giving it a sense of discreet privacy that made her feel all the world like it had been built especially for her. Considering its size, Jack had come to a similar conclusion, if for entirely different reasoning. It would be impossible for a single passenger to hide any secrets at all on such a comparatively small vessel, a truth which he was sure would suit Phryne intolerably well. It had crossed his mind - only as fleetingly as he had allowed it - that being contained with a Lady Detective for a period of thirty-five days in a relatively confined space might yield some frightfully interesting results. He was not inclined to believe that Phryne would be overly diverted with quite that much Shuffleboard, so he sincerely hoped that none aboard were easily offended by scrutiny. 

That they themselves had never been forced into each other’s company for an extended or regular timeframe had also crossed his mind, and slightly more pertinently. It worked, their little unspoken arrangement - he moving steadily along with his ways and Miss Fisher whisking in and out of the lines with her usual flamboyance. As much as he had been reluctant to admit it, their repartee seemingly requiring his disapproval, they worked well together, efficiently. The cases that saw her eager mind in action - and her flexibility with the rules, he dared to add - were resolved thoroughly and quickly. He wondered now if, by changing the formula, the were tempting the boundaries of their success. It was hard to know exactly what effect such a volatile chemical as Miss Phryne Fisher might have on extended contact. All the more uncertain to know just how he might fare with time and limited space as the catalyst. 

He wished, suddenly, that he owned a pair of safety goggles. 

The loading had already been an experience, the tally of trunks to be settled in the cargo hold having reached an incredible four, in addition to two cabin trunks, a suitcase and a twin-pair of valises that were hurried up the gangplank to make the arrival on board all the more comfortable. Dr Macmillan, who had naturally come along to see her friend off and had been present at her Melbourne arrival, had commented - much to Jack’s disbelief - that the total baggage was a remarkable sign of restraint. Phryne had almost crowed at the look on Jack’s face when she’d said so.

She had trusted Cec and Bert with seeing that everything was properly undertaken and the pair had done a fine job, as expected. Even now, Bert was overseeing the remainder of the job to see that no carelessness resulted in a last-minute mishap that might inconvenience the party. With trunks now safely aboard and intentions so close to being realised, it was time for a stream of goodbyes. Cec predictably showed more emotion than was to be expected of man with a reputation for being quite so blokish; despite his few words, Phryne knew well that much feeling lived within him. Mac uttered her departing well-wishing with bright wit enough for all of them, and Dot bid farewell to her constable with all the innocent charm of their connection, their earlier discomfort seemingly lost in the adventure and the promise of her return, and giving way to a very brazen stolen kiss. 

Phryne had noted that Constable Collins had blushed just as heartily as his sweetheart. 

Thus, all that kept them from making their way from Melbourne’s shores was set aside and they ascended the gangplank with the mix of emotions that must come with any voyage, never mind one so thoroughly complicated in its purpose. Their spectators did not make a meal of the moment and were soon heading off, only Cec remaining behind to wait for Bert, who had managed to entangle himself in the final loading of a series of very large crates - cargo bound for Genoa to offset the cost of the journey. It all seemed somewhat idyllic in its simplicity, and it didn’t suit Jack’s mind at all. 

He was on edge, and thoroughly on his guard as a result and something sat peculiarly about everything that had pounced upon him in the last week. As he stood next to Phryne on deck, her own curiosity about the loading overcoming her desire to settle down to the Lloyd Sabaudo sandwiches she had heard so much about, he watched every face and shade that passed by them on the dock below. What he was expecting to see on a Melbourne dock, he had no idea. He tried to remind himself that they were not even approaching enemy territory yet. In fact, there was no true enemy to speak of. This was not like the first time he had left these shores for Europe, it was a matter of discretion only, they were not waging war - and yet his gut held taught as he considered the presence beside him of red and cream linens and chiffon. Her parasol danced on the edge of hands thoroughly diverted by the adventure, and all that Jack could think was that he had been shuffled along on this mission because the Premier had not wanted her to go alone. 

Why? 

Suddenly, a rousing crack shot up from the wharf and every instinct seized as voices raised in panic all around the four wharfies - and Bert - and their ongoing little operation. It took a moment for Jack to focus on this new development, his mind so fixed on observation, but the sound of Phryne’s voice soon brought him to it.

“Jack, the support rope!” 

A terrible creaking had begun and from their vantage point, it was all too easy to see that it was the horrible straining of the rope, which held the remaining crates aloft. Strand by fraying strand, the weight was becoming too much and crewmen aboard were waving violently at those helping below as the crates swayed menacingly. None on the dock, however, seemed able to make sense of the instructions in the buzz that had arisen from the remaining crowds waiting to see the boat off, and were intent on trying to regain control of the moving cargo. They pulled on the ropes used to pulley them aboard and Jack found himself crossing the deck to call down at them. 

“Clear the way!” he bellowed, his familiar and authoritative voice capturing Bert’s attention and alerting him to a problem. 

But it was too late. 

With yet another crack and a terrifying whooshing sound that resembled the wings of a descending dragon, the lift collapsed with a mighty crash to the dock, sending contents and wharfies flying about in all directions in escape. 

“Bert!” Phryne yelled as she lurched forward, taking her grip on the gunwale. Horrified, she noted the hundreds of shards of wood that had splintered about the wharf with the sickening crack of shattering crates, and she searched in earnest for any sign of her friend. The rest of the cargo was wreckage, already looking derelict, though it had been so recently packed. Tin cans of some industrial product had bled all over the boards and covered the space that had been below. She felt her stomach flip. Jack was at her side within seconds, his own dark eyes performing the same search even as the dust settled. He could spy a man helping his friend to his feet - apparently uninjured - but there was no sign at all of Bert. Phryne’s gloved hand suddenly seized his as she paled. “Bert!” she cried again. 

Where was he? 

They stood in motionless dread, unable to do anything to make their friend reappear. Jack held his breath as he had a thousand times in the trenches, and more recently with the pointing of so many guns at a certain lady. It was impossible to describe the relief, then, to hear uproarious cursing coming from just behind the accident as Bert finally emerged, covered in saw dust and ripping into the other dock-hand with all the force of an angry bear. Phryne brought her hand up to her chest in relief, the rush of breath she let out brushing warmly across Jack’s cheek and neck as she turned her head to murmur an expletive of her own and release the sudden shock. “For Heaven’s sake,” she managed shortly after, “it’s remarkable what some men will skimp on, just to save a quick buck. The wharf owner should be arrested for supplying worn rope! He could have been killed!” 

Jack was not quite so convinced. He knew the owners at the wharf kept a particular eye on ships like the Principessa Giovanna, it was unlikely that a worn rope would be anywhere near this loading. His general lack of ease grew more insistent by the second and his senses remained piqued. It felt wrong. Something felt wrong. While Phryne was the more intuitive of the pair - or indeed simply the one more willing to trust such intuition to - Jack had not arrived where he was by ignoring his senses. It was certainly not what had returned him from the war. As it was, however, he had nothing further to pursue his enquiry and the ship was leaving in a matter of minutes. 

“Are you all right, Bert?” Phryne’s voice carried across the gangplank, drawing Jack’s thoughts back to the present. The cabbie merely turned with his hat in hand and lifted a wave of good-health to his employer, dismissing her fears even as his face thundered at the man across from him. Seeing that he was all well, Phryne relaxed against her support and was immediately thankful that none of her trunks had been involved. It could be quite the way to start the trip, having her things strewn all across port. She waved her final farewell to him and was quite ready to be on her way. 

“Is everything all right, Miss? I heard a commotion,” Dot appeared from below decks, where she had already been assisting Mr Butler in setting up Phryne’s cabin. 

“Yes, quite. Thank you, Dot. A little trouble with the loading is all,” Phryne assured her companion, her own panic from but a moment before completely lost to the wind at the sight of a more vulnerable creature. Jack noted the change and smiled at Dot. 

“Some untrustworthy rope and a few crates that will no longer be making the journey to Fremantle,” he explained further, without raising any concern. Dot simply nodded, her face calming almost immediately at their mutual assurances. How nice it must be, Jack thought, to take someone so completely at their word. He turned back to Phryne, who seemed to have lost all enthusiasm for the deck and was holding her parasol over her shoulder as though it had grown quite heavy. “Perhaps it is time to make note of our living quarters and leave the dock work to the wharfies?” 

“Assuming they don’t need proper representation in the event of employer negligence,” Phryne verbalised her outrage with a slight pout and a very brief flicker of her brows at the opportunity to tease Jack over his use of the word ‘our’. 

Intriguingly, she let him be. 

“Hadn’t we better wait for Mr Agostini?” Dot enquired dutifully. 

Jack halted.

“Mr Agostini… will no longer be joining us, Dot,” Phryne offered carefully, as though that had not been the plan all along and she was thoroughly disappointed as she refused to look at Jack. Had they not agreed to tell Dot the truth before they’d even set foot on the ship? “He has been overwhelmed by a sudden influx of new business and simply could not be away,” Phryne continued to lie prettily, and Jack was overwhelmed by a familiar frustration blossoming in his chest as he realised she must have disregarded what he had said for the hundredth time. He ducked his head a little as she went on, “He has promised, however, to make it up to us with the very generous offer of his apartments, which I hear are deliciously close to the Fontana di Trevi.” 

As though that answered all their cares, she made a collected and stylishly well-honed strut for the bulkhead hatch that would lead them below decks and away at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And off we go! Please comment if you have a moment, I’d still like to hear your thoughts and comments. Warning: The next chapter is actually just a praise-piece on the wonders of the Suez Canal.


	3. A Struggle in the Suez

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The voyage to Europe is not without its surprises, but that's nothing to what's waiting for our intrepid band in Egypt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many apologies for the wait! Had a number of developments in the past few weeks that I’ve had to train my focus on, including a new job! So, time’s been a little less available. The following chapter is only a partial expression of the voyage between Australia and Italy, and while it holds together in narrative, there are events that occur onboard which are only covered in passing, and will be more thoroughly explored in a new upcoming companion fic called ‘Anchors Aweigh’! Until then, ‘Onwards, to Rome!’

“And is this your idea of keeping Miss Williams informed?” Jack’s voice was hoarse in whisper and clipped as soon as they were alone in Phryne’s cabin. Dot had shuffled briefly off to assist Mr Butler with the remaining luggage that housed the Inspector’s new wardrobe, but she would be back momentarily, and Jack absolutely would not miss his moment. As he took a hold of Phryne’s elbow in the small cabin parlour set up for visitors and so neatly arranged in the room adjoining her bedroom, she knew she had cut this one close to the bone. Then, was it not always that way between them? Pushing and pulling and prodding until something gave or ignited?

On this occasion, it appeared to be his temper, and although it was never her preferred outcome, it would be a lie to say that it did not send a flicker of a thrill through her whenever he responded in a manner that was so very much the opposite of his calm collectedness. It sounded crass under the circumstance, almost cruel as she subconsciously catalogued the shiver of his grasp on her, and it had certainly never been her express intention. Every action of hers that seemed to arouse his ire saw that response as purely and unfortunately incidental, but when it happened, she would not deny its effect on her. 

“Why not call it a benevolent deception,” she offered lightly in response, her defence still heartily in place at being questioned and her humour a standard tactic for diverting the seriousness of an allegation against her.

“And who was the arbiter of that definition?” he said, refusing to capitulate to it, or her. He had pulled her close, so as not to be overheard, but he was as gentle as ever he was when he held her in those unexpected and yet purposeful moments. 

It was only his voice that was hard as the hull that held them. 

“I was,” she fired back, as though to establish her right to manage the whole thing. It was her affair, after all. This was not an investigation in the hands of the Victorian Constabulary, she was not trespassing this time; it was he who was the guest, however compelled he had been. His jaw tightened at her defiance and he kept his gaze as rigid as his argument. Phryne did not remove herself from his hold immediately, an indicator of what was to come as she softened her tone. “You know as well as I do, Jack, that on assignments like these, the ones who suffer in event of catastrophe are the ones who know the truth;” she laid it out plainly for him, “the less Dot knows, the safer she is. I would rather she were an innocent dupe than a culpable conspirator.” 

“And you think the black shirts are going to be as distinguishing as they are forgiving, if they discover us?” he pressed her. There was a lingering silence then. Phryne had no answer for him, just as she had not had one for herself the night before, while she had lain awake and considered and reconsidered waking Dot. She wanted to state facts at him: It’s a matter of the law. They’ll have no charge on which to hold her. We’ll never be discovered. 

She said nothing. 

“What were you planning on saying about my tagging along?” he drove the point home, raising Phryne’s hackles instantly. 

“I’m an improvisor, Inspector,” she defended, leaning on his title with all the effort she spared in not actually pushing him away, “how else does one survive the snake pit that is London Society?” 

“An improvisor?!” he hissed, returning her gesture of formality with the next, “This isn’t exactly dinner conversation, Miss Fisher.” 

“And that’s your expert opinion on dinner conversation, is it?” she narrowed her eyes immediately, tilting her head in sarcastic query as the air of high offence brewed.

“Phryne -”

“I will cross the bridge when I get to it, Jack,” she cut out at him, punctuating it with the sharp removal of her arm from his grip, “I assure you, I have this well under control.” 

“If you believe that, then you’re -” he caught himself, but only briefly. “For all the things I’ve thought about you, Phryne Fisher, I never once took you for an idiot,” he stated bluntly. It crossed a mark and Phryne’s eyes flashed red, even as he continued, “This isn’t your parlour, or some suburban crime scene. This isn’t a hobby anymore!” 

“A hobby?” she cut back at him in black anger, instant hurt blossoming, “If you think for a moment that I haven’t considered the ramifications of this endeavour over and again from every angle, then you are sorely mistaken and -” She breathed in, to avoid saying what she desperately wanted to regarding her disappointment at his apparent opinion of her. It was a moot point and far too revealing. “If you think that my priority in this is anything other than Dot’s perfect safety, then I have seriously overestimated our partnership.”

Jack’s jaw fused shut, her last cutting straight through the rest of his righteous anger. He could see Janey in her eyes. His fingers reached for her of their own accord. She burned them back with one glance. He reigned himself in. 

“She needs to know, Phryne. Tell her,” he finally responded, straining over it and putting his concern over as calmly as he could manage. “Tell her, or I will.” 

“Is there anyth -,” came a familiar voice, as though it knew the conversation being had surrounded it. Dot paled when she realised that she had stepped in on something unexpected, “Oh, forgive me, Inspector, I didn’t realise - I’ll come back later.” 

“What is it, Dot?” Phryne asked, allowing the interruption as though to make a point.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, Miss,” she ducked her head low and folded her hands neatly in front of her, upending the flow of argument between them, “I just wanted to see if you needed anything further before I headed down to the servants’ corridor.” 

“I thought we’d settled that you would have the room adjacent to mine?” Phryne interjected, disliking intently the tradition which so enforced the class separation at sea, “If we’re to spend a month at sea, I will absolutely not have you banished below decks.” She made it sound rather as though they were facing the dreaded Middle Passage, bound for a cotton plantation in America rather than a tour of the Mediterranean. 

“I will,” Dot assured her, not wishing to enter back into the argument that had begun with her having her own cabin - a mortifying thought - and trying to settle the matter, “but I’d still like to introduce myself to the others.” She said nothing of the fact that her sleeping arrangements would arouse suspicion and, most likely, a swathe of unkindness if she did not clarify some of the details and assure the others in service that she did not think the servants’ corridor beneath her. 

She had already resolved - God forgive her - to explain that her lady preferred her close and on call through the night, rather than suggest that she had been ‘rescued’ from their combined position. 

There was silence, which was certainly not the usual modus operandi of her employer and, as Dot looked up, she did not miss the fleeting glance between her ladyship and the Inspector - full of warning, demand and not an insignificant amount of defiance. Dot had still not had the chance to get anywhere beyond wondering at the Inspector’s presence aboard the Principessa Giovanna, and it was thoroughly impertinent to ask, even when she had been folding his shirts. It did seem odd, however, that he did not have quite the same problems with leaving Melbourne behind as Hugh did. It was definitely curious, but not nearly so curious as Miss Fisher’s possible reasoning for allowing him - encouraging him? - to come along. 

“Of course,” Phryne finally cleared the space. Not noticing the lingering hesitation in Miss Fisher’s voice and feeling that that was the end of her query, Dot made to turn back towards the door and exit when, “Dot?”

“Yes, Miss?” she turned abruptly back. Had there been something else? It was impossible not to take note of the Inspector’s fiercely stern look now. 

“Sit down a moment, will you?” 

Dot looked uneasily about her. As much as she had abandoned her training with Miss Fisher, it still ruffled her when the woman broke from protocol, especially when she had interrupted a conversation that had sounded far from amiable and the tension of it still hung so thickly in the air. She looked uncertainly into pert blue eyes. Phryne gestured towards one of the armchairs, her body language inviting despite the stiffness in her demeanour, which seemed to emanate from the Inspector like electricity. Her impatience was clear, but Dot knew better than to think her employer was upset with her about something in this instance, any roughness in her now was a remnant. Dot looked nervously at the Inspector, feeling thoroughly uncomfortable taking a seat when both of the others still stood. Miss Fisher would not be dissuaded, however, and the urgency felt clear as Dot took up a place in the very edge of the armchair nearest her. 

“Would you be so kind, Inspector, as to call for Mr Butler?” 

xXx

“Mr Jack Ridgeway,” Mr Butler tried his tongue around Jack’s allotted pseudonym, cataloguing the entirety of the affair in his careful way.

“I suggested Oliver. I thought it had a slightly more poetic ring,” with appeasement in the air, Phryne was back to a semblance of her usual good humour as she leaned against the mantel of the fireplace, which was really an architectural blank that hid an electric heater, considering the only functional fireplace was in the First Class Smoking Room. “The Inspector, however, thought it best to stick to his Christian name. He doesn’t want to be searching the room for Oliver every time someone calls out to him. Naturally, he’ll be on a first name basis with everyone.” 

“Everyone who matters,” Jack cut quickly back, his own frustration spent, now that he had confronted her to a constructive end, “and it will significantly lessen the chance of a slip-up.”

“That depends entirely on the kind of slip-up,” Phryne muttered quietly, inferring what she would about his being on first-name bases with everyone who mattered. 

“And nobody knows except for the four of us in this room?” Dot tested meekly. 

“And the Chief Commissioner, and the Premier, of course,” Phryne answered, determined to be bluntly honest now that Jack had asked for it. There was a stunned silence to follow and the look of serious consideration on the faces of one half of the little band was enough to make Phryne add, a little more gently, “I’m happy to send you both back on the next available ship after we dock in Fremantle, should you so wish. There’s no harm done at all in taking a little excursion to Western Australia.” 

She thought on that a moment, her eyes reaching upward to reconsider.

“Well, no irreparable harm. I’m sure the sandgropers have their own unique charms,” she could not help the slight twitch of her cheek, “at least it’s not Tasmania.” The room was not inclined to humour, not even the kind so loyal to their own state. It was Mr Butler who responded first, his gaze reaching up to meet Miss Fisher’s joke with all the seriousness her care deserved, but it was Dot that dared to speak. Her voice held that stiff resolution that Phryne had so come to admire in their time together. 

“And send you two off to Italy alone?” it was motherly, sure of itself, “not on your life.” Phryne looked down from her vantage point and could not help the glow of pride that beamed through her emerging smile. 

“Right she is,” added Mr Butler, to affirm his own position in the party, “and I’m hardly about to let Mr Ridgeway present to ‘everyone who matters’ without being properly turned down. For all intents and purposes, I think it imperative that he have the proper services of a fully-trained valet.” 

Jack paled. 

“I don’t think -”

“A marvellous idea, Mr Butler!” Phryne grinned, “After all, I wouldn’t even know where to begin with those cufflinks.” 

How she could make cufflinks flirtatious, let alone with such a blatant lie, Jack did not know. He was much more concerned, however, about this new development, which involved a second person bent on dressing him, or undressing him as the case may be. “I believe I have been dressing myself for the better part of my life,” he objected, his small smile indicating his discomfort and certainly the passing of his earlier anger, “I can get along just fine on my own.”

“Not in Italy, sir,” Mr Butler added with all the politeness of his inestimable experience. Jack looked down at him in surprise, feeling very slightly like he had something to prove at the doubt that seemed to permeate about his abilities in the area of his dress. He found himself unable to answer the man’s forthright expression, however, and instead merely stared him down with a sense of disloyalty. “In Italy, a valet is a matter of principle,” Mr Butler responded in kind. 

Jack suddenly wished Collins were with him to even out the numbers. 

“Right, well,” he deferred to the importance of the mission, “of course, if you think it best.” 

“You’ll not be sorry, Jack,” Phryne interjected, “Mr Butler knows exactly what he’s about.”

“I’m sure he does,” Jack answered, still unsure about the proposition. With the party truly gathered, however, he was comforted to know that they would all be in it together; the paradox of camaraderie not lost on him as his protective side met the strange comfort. 

The veracity of Phryne’s confidence in Mr Butler’s abilities, however, was not to be proven, even as the ship drew further away from Melbourne and the evening’s activities drew intimidatingly nearer. The dinner on the first night of a voyage was always an informal affair amongst the upper crust, and none changed from the light travel wear that had been adopted for the boarding, leaving Jack quite happily amongst them, even as he felt the pressure of truly assuming his identity as Mr Ridgeway for the first time. He was glad not to be alone in the endeavour, working his way neatly through the expectations of the crowd by the grace of a mind more informed than his own about such things, and infinitely prettier - especially as this crowd originated largely from Australia and could be considered acquainted with Melbourne Society. 

With Phryne on his arm, he could breathe a little easier. Well, in one way at least. 

“The Ridgeways?” chimed in an ageing socialite, Mrs Hillock, who wore far too heavy a shade of rouge, “are they not of mining magnate fame?” 

“Yes, that’s right,” Phryne leapt aboard that tack, “Mr Ridgeway’s father has extensive interests in the mining industry in Western Australia, but his own interest has been piqued by the emerging import market in Melbourne of late.” 

“I’d wager that’s been the case for half of you,” beamed Colonel Pickford, a British Officer amongst the party on his way home from paying a long-overdue visit to the Antipodes, and of a countenance so rosy, Phryne almost doubted it had anything to do with copious amounts of whiskey he seemed bent on consuming. 

“Quite,” added Mr Hillock, who shared his wife’s obvious sort of distaste at the thought of inherited money being utilised in something so uncivilised as industry, “though not the more responsible half, I am sure.” 

It was for the better, really, since it was now unlikely that any in the party would ask Jack about it. By nestling him neatly between the more innovative of the landed gentry and the upper class of true distinction she all but guaranteed him a kind of precious anonymity. He offered her a quick sidelong glance, noting the tone and flicking his brows upward to express precisely what he thought of that snobbery. Phryne’s lip curled to one side, feeling fully impressed with herself for having avoided the need to share such jokes with Richard Armstrong - who would be more likely to agree than shoot her almost conspiratorially humorous opinions. She only wished she could drag Jack along to the bevy of other social engagements that involved her either holding her tongue to the point of bleeding the life out of it, or saying something just shocking enough to silence the madness while she ate. 

As of this moment, however, they had to make an impression and Phryne would be damned if it was not the perfect one. 

“Yes, well, I am sure I can count on one of you fine gentlemen to take Mr Ridgeway under your wing after dinner and teach him the art of idle chatter,” it was just pert enough to be cheeky above being insolent and the sight of her teasing smile alongside it gave rise to a few returned. In contrast, however, Jack’s smile all but disappeared completely at being abandoned to this lot, even if it was only after dinner. 

They would laugh about it later, she was certain, but his face now bore the expression of the endearingly panicked. 

“Naturally!” cried Colonel Pickford, leaning forward at the waist as though about to tell a secret, despite the volume of his voice, “Provided he knows his brandy, I can’t say that we’ll have any trouble at all teaching the lad to relax.” A polite patter chuckled around the circle, and Phryne favoured him with a lean of her own, putting a gloved hand to the forearm that held up his current drink as she picked her ally in the mob. 

“Don’t loosen him up too much, Colonel,” she said, “I have to return him to his mother exactly the way that I found him.” The patter lifted to a laugh in earnest and all but Mrs Hillock seemed to feel a little better about a month at sea with the delightful creature who dared a little impertinence. 

Jack watched with interest at the way Phryne navigated the company, her hand subtle and yet undeniably in command of the situation. It was rather like battle strategy, he mused; she was all careful calculations and perfectly positioned moments. While she could not keep Mrs Hillock on side and cater to the rest, he had no doubt that the indomitable Miss Fisher would work her way round to it when the conditions were favourable - though keeping the older woman on side at all seemed a feat enough for a magician. 

Dinner was a slight affair, nothing too heavy on the stomach, so as to avoid any further discomfort in the adjustment to the occasional pitching of the bow. It was a strange reality that, despite the fact that the movement of the ship was all but unnoticeable, the body seemed to know that it was not where it ought to be. Legs would adapt soon enough, but it was this kind of care that made the Lloyd-Sabaudo Line what it was. Jack kept a steady eye on proceedings, his habit of constant vigilance not at all discouraged by the presence of salade russe. Phryne’s dominion over the table continued, her laugh - seated uncomfortably across from him as opposed to next to him, as he had assumed it would be - rising every now and then to greet one or other anecdote. While he had dined with her on occasion, and borne witness to the extremities of her life in fleeting pictures that seemed to spin about like a gyroscope, it was something else altogether to be a part of the life that he had almost forgotten she lead aside from their meetings over Melbourne’s Murdered.

This would be the intrigue of this new ground, he knew. Four weeks ensconced with her aboard the ship and Heaven knew how long after that in the mythical surrounds of Rome? He was about to meet Miss Fisher - not as he had known her, nor as he had imagined her - which he undoubtedly had - but as she was. She would no longer be a part, but a whole, and the wild strategy of the crime scene and the warm, vulnerable intimacy of the parlour would have context. 

“… is positively ghastly, don’t you agree, Mr Ridgeway?” Mrs Hillock’s face was so expectant, Jack thought she might take to the Rack for answers if she did not get them. 

“I’m sorry?” he grasped at the nothing with which he had been left. The High Inquisitor was not impressed.

“I said this business with the Mafia is simply awful, is it not?” she followed his distraction and found - rather unsurprisingly, really - the scintillating Miss Fisher at the end of it. This only seemed to make her angrier still. 

“Yes,” Jack agreed solemnly, unsure to which ‘business’ she was referring, but equally unwilling to disagree with her when it could be avoided. His singular word answer did not appease, and Mrs Hillock’s brow raised as she inspected him without reserve.

“So your primary estate is in Western Australia?” she questioned as she took to her glass of wine with disdain, before training her sharp blue eyes on him. They seemed to wonder what he would do without his dazzling friend to fill each gap in his social graces. Jack felt that pressure, remembering suddenly Phryne’s earlier cutting assault on his conversational talents. The thought was enough to compel him to action. 

“Devon, actually,” he countered, lifting his own glass rather like a sabre, “my father’s family might have lived in orchard country since before William The Conqueror.” His smile appeared then, challenging and quick, “My mother put his interest in Australia down as a healthy sense of adventure, or a tiring taste for apple tart, dependent on the company.” 

Mrs Hillock blinked, “And have you tired of apple tart?” 

“Not at all,” he said, “my attachment to these shores has more to do with time than distaste. I have been here since I was a boy, you see.”

“In Western Australia,” it sounded like an accusation. 

“And now Melbourne,” he returned, “the import industry has, indeed, been of interest.”

“Amongst other things,” she slipped in rather idly, for its intended purpose. The way her eyes drew back to Phryne was almost comical, and he did not take her comments personally. The way she clutched her fork suggested she would suspect any man of The Offence. Jack made a mental note to see if Miss Fisher’s talents were up to the task of broaching the woman’s disapproval. Then, if she did not broach it, she would almost certainly circumvent it, so the situation was really a matter of ‘how long’ rather than ‘if’. 

“You are very astute, Mrs Hillock,” he jested with jovial surprise, “how smart of you to know that I also have a vested interest in sheep.” She was bound to lodge an objection, whether through her characteristic haughty glance, or through her forthrightness - which had already been impressively on display. Thankfully, Jack was spared her protest, however it was to be delivered, by a sudden exclamation from the head of the table.

“Captain!” called the Colonel, standing to welcome a gentleman impeccably turned out in his uniform, his distinguished figure cut impressively against the lush background of the first class dining room. Phryne noted the sharp Roman features of his homeland and could not help the flicker of a smile at the silver touches that pressed into his jet black hair. 

“Colonel,” he greeted with perfect politeness, restrained in comparison to the Colonel’s bold upstanding pat of his back. He cast his eyes about the table, but was halted from offering any general greeting in favour of being dragged by his coat tails to Phryne’s side.

“Captain Allegro, may I present the Honourable Phryne Fisher,” the Colonel effused, “positively the most darling creature onboard.” Phryne remained unmoved by the labelling, hyperbolic flattery - not particular to her tastes, and certainly taking a back seat to the Captain’s bow. He faced her directly, his brown eyes meeting hers with the stability of self assurance. It was a trait she liked to see in a ship captain and, though she was often more moved by energetic youth, she was not immune to his matured confidence.

“Miss Fisher,” he said, speaking to her directly rather than about her, as seemed the fashion of lesser men, “welcome aboard. I trust that everything is to your liking? If it is not, do not hesitate to mention my name.”   
Phryne’s lip twitched at what was undoubtedly characteristic Italian arrogance, and the very thing that had compelled her a moment before, threatened to deflate her opinion of him as it crossed the line into potential narcissism. Jack was certain he didn’t like it, so it was fortunate or the Captain that he had not finished. The finale to his little speech served as the perfect lifeboat to salvage the situation, “I cannot say, however, that it will be of any advantage to you.” His eyes sparkled with self-deprecating humour and a rush of relief flooded through Phryne, alongside her suddenly flirtatious smile; it was always pleasant to be affirmed in an attraction, rather than disappointed. 

“Well,” she returned, her thoughts flickering over a thousand situations in which calling out his name might be beneficial, “there can certainly be no harm in repeating it.” 

His smile suggested that he understood her meaning perfectly. 

Jack caught himself in the midst of the feeling, rather than consciously at the beginning, but the effect was much the same. It was his turn to be holding his fork oddly - though where Mrs Hillock had clasped it with possessive disapproval, his lingered on the tips of his fingers with a sudden wilting recognition. In all his consideration of meeting Miss Fisher in her fullness, it had never crossed his mind that it might be something that he did not like. He was not naïve about her vivacious sexuality, indeed she had never actively striven to keep it a secret from him or anybody, but it had always existed on the periphery of their closeness. He had seen her flirt and beguile, but he had not been required to stay in that place. 

Now, there was nowhere else to go. 

He had been able to move away, back into real life and the separation of normality and routine. Now, there was nothing but ocean to escape to. It felt wrong to resent it. After all, she had always been perfectly frank with him and he had no right to claim from her the grounds for his resentment. He realised, nonetheless, that in all his keeping a calculated distance, a treacherous thought had taken root without his permission. Being faced with this reality, he was finally forced to confront the fact that whatever flirting she had done in his presence had not, in fact, been exclusively his. He felt like a boy in that admission. Of course it hadn’t. He had known it hadn’t. 

And yet dinner seemed somehow less appetising.   
xXx

The following evening’s dinner was no more successful, the requirement that he present for a formal meal only further entrenching a sense of claustrophobia that Jack had not expected as the day had gone on. He had tried to put the childish sensation away, to dismiss it throughout their interactions, but it had remained and heightened at a lunchtime liaison with the same pepper-haired instigator. Jack was so much Phryne’s opposite, that he had come to see himself as structured, orderly in comparison to her whimsy — full of routine and obedience to the rules. It was the very thing that had made him intrigued by the way they pushed and pulled at each other, blurring the lines between them to find a successful middle ground that sometimes had him stepping on the wild side and her treading a little closer to the fine line. This sudden need for space, then, felt oddly foreign. It was not he that ought to worry about being fenced in, and yet, that was precisely how he felt. 

It had begun, of course, on that first day she had approached him and grown more pertinent with his suspicions on the wharf. The final emerging pressure of the previous evening he refused to concede, since he had spent the better part of their acquaintance denying it was a problem and was not about to change that as they stepped feet first into the furnace that potentially awaited them. His resolve, however, did nothing to stem the continuing knot of discontent within him. Almost overnight, he had become stiff, resistant and he knew Phryne had noticed. How could she not have, with her seemingly inhuman knack for sensitivity? 

As he returned to his cabin for the second time, on excuse of tiredness from being at sea, he was in a foul mood if ever he’d been in one and he tried to release the tension by loosening the tie of his tuxedo. It had caused a stir from Miss Fisher that normally would have been dangerously pleasant, but was now only a challenge in light of his fighting the thought that he was merely one amongst many. 

His pride was remarkable to him and irksome in equal measure. 

He could only conclude that it was stress of the oncoming mission, the unyielding closeness of being at sea that had driven his irritability right up. Everything was an offence and he rationalised it in hopes of disintegrating it under explanation. Tomorrow he would be fine, tomorrow he would be himself, tomorrow he would forget about this mood and - 

“Shall I turn down the bed early, sir?” 

Jack felt his unease snap into action as his entire body went rigid with fright and he was forced to control clenched fists with burgeoning recognition of Mr Butler about his duties. It was amazing how quickly he could forget their situation, even as he thought about it. The change for dinner had certainly been an education, but finding him now in the one place he had hoped to find sanctuary was another matter altogether. 

“Don’t worry yourself, Mr Butler,” he dismissed in a manner that was meant to be friendly, “I can manage.”

“It is my job to worry myself, sir,” Mr Butler responded, a smile tugging where it seemed to linger permanently.

“Not tonight,” Jack said, fiddling with a cufflink that would not budge until he finally gave up and looked at the other man with a darkness about him, “please.” 

There was silence. 

“Detective-Inspector Robinson - “

“Mr Ridgeway,” Jack corrected perfunctorily, tending to the top two buttons of his shirt. Mr Butler’s head popped up from the task of laying out a nightshirt, the stern look about his face suggesting that while he was acting as valet, he would certainly not be put off in this instance. Jack was distracted, looking to the floor, his frown so distinctly unsettled, it raised the alarum. Mr Butler stopped what he had been doing. He knew a great deal - invisible men so often do - and he knew beyond a doubt that there was something amiss. Reason had alerted him from the moment the journey had been proposed and, though his suspicions had been confirmed by the earlier meeting between this daring four, he sensed that the true problem still remained, despite the alleviation of the secrets between them all. His first instinct was to talk the man down, just as he had with Dorothy, but seeing him now, he knew it would not work. 

Jack Robinson had been a master of himself for far too long. He didn’t need any more euphemisms. 

Right now, it was a matter of freedom. In their scheme of things, Jack had come to be the responsible one, but that meant nothing in terms of his desire for autonomy. Certainly he followed orders, he kept inside the law like an exorcist taking cover in a ring of salt, but the first hint of losing his command over his life had driven a wedge between this man and his wife. There were reasons why the son-in-law of the Deputy Chief Commissioner kept to field work and an office at City South. There were reasons why his wife subsequently divorced him. Jack Robinson was his own man - a man of strict principle, which aligned itself dutifully to the law - but uncommanded by any lesser institution, or any lesser figure. In that way, the Detective-Inspector and Mr Butler’s own employer were very much alike. 

They had crossed each other as intersecting circles, but they had always held a space of mutual exclusivity. A place where each was commander, which allowed them compromise in the middle. Now that Miss Fisher had absorbed Jack into her circle, he would not fall into the concentricity that she was used to, and the result was a potentially damaging friction. Jack was already fraying, bristling at the feeling. It was a difficult question, however - without a single permanent answer, to the butler’s mind - and, at present, there seemed but one temporary one that might yield a positive outcome.

“She needs you now, more than ever,” he said, so quietly it might have been a knife to the back. Jack certainly felt it slide between his ribs. 

“I’m sorry?” he challenged, utterly unsettled by the bluntness that had pre-empted absolutely everything. 

“You’re good for her,” he continued, “and it’s important.”

“I don’t know what you- “

“Nonsense,” the older man tested the limits of his impertinence, “you do know what I mean, and with respect, I am telling you that she needs you now.” 

Jack stared at him, both outraged and yet feeling distinctly like Mr Butler had every right to say what he was saying - perhaps it was the tone of voice that gave it such command. It was a strangeness to Jack, so far from everything that he had been thinking about; Miss Fisher did not need anything. She had what she wanted and that was that, to her mind at any rate. Jack pulled off his jacket in agitation, but he did not send Mr Butler away. He did not know how to respond otherwise. “She needs boundaries,” he finally cut out bitterly, from a place he didn’t understand, “but not a person on earth could give them to her.” 

The scoff was light, almost imperceptible as the other man took the jacket from his hands and placed it on a clothes horse, picking up a brush to properly care for it. “She doesn’t need boundaries, Inspector,” there was no challenge, “only disaster could come from trying to cage her, and as you have said, she would never allow it.” 

“Well, if she doesn’t make allowances for some, then she’s going to get herself killed,” Jack snapped, shocked again at the anger in his voice, the vulnerability of his honesty, and the damned stamina of his blasted cufflinks. 

“Oh, she can take care of those troubles with on hand tied behind -“ 

“Then what?” Jack almost burst with the question. Mr butler did not lose his head for a moment. Jack took command of himself in very short measure, “What does she need? Why does she need me?” 

Why can’t she leave me alone? He seemed to say. 

“You’re her sure place to land.”

It was frighteningly simple: the harbour in the storm, a branch in the flood. Something to be sure of. The thought snuck in and unpinned Jack’s frustrations with such ease, it felt unfair. There was a heavy silence as he tried to fight what had been said. After a moment, he dropped his wrist and sighed, acknowledging that if Mr Butler was manipulating him, he was doing a damned near perfect job of it. Whatever he felt for Phryne, he was weak enough to it to feel the compulsion of that need - should it exist - into any action that might meet it. He was fully aware, that his pride treasured the thought. Perhaps it was a futile hope, but it was a powerful one. 

“And I must simply endure the rest?” he fought with one last ounce of waning strength. 

“I can’t answer that for you, sir,” Mr Butler returned to formality, having said his piece and thought it enough, “but if you cannot, I would beg you to choose your moment wisely.” 

Jack took his meaning. If he had wanted to fight this, it was too late to do it now. He knew he could not abandon her to face this endeavour alone, no matter how capable she was in dealing with it. Mr Butler would not press it further, and having been allowed to look after his jacket, at least, he decided not to discourage reconciliation further by sending the man to bed. 

“She’s on deck, I would wager,” he said without guile, neutrally assisting as ever. 

“And what if she is?” Jack answered back, his face rigid in his remaining refusal.

“Goodnight, sir,” Mr Butler simply said, making his retreat without haste or compromise. 

And that, thought Jack, was that?

xXx

The day had been greatly subdued, and Phryne could little understand it as she stood on deck after dinner. Her spirits were lifted as high as ever they could be - surrounded by the promise of new delight, new challenge and the intimate closeness of the very people she liked best. The singular regret she possessed in the moonlight was that Mac could not be there to liven the space with a little revolution - a fellow cat amongst the pigeons, so to speak. For all Jack’s conspiracy at the dinner table the night before, he was still infinitely proper where Elizabeth was not. In truth, she was not convinced that he was not infinitely more proper than ever he had been. He had not responded at all to her compliments on his dinner attire, not even to confidently accept them as mere compliments and bat her unmistakable undertone aside with his usual charming finesse. It was not at all what she had expected of him. Honestly, she had expected - hoped for - the exact opposite. This was meant to be an adventure, and some part of her was determined to see Jack Robinson adventuring. 

She suspected it had to do with the argument of the day before. Though she had been convinced that they had lain their differences to rest, his calmer side returning as they had brought Dot and Mr Butler into their circle and discussed moving forward with the endeavour, it had become apparent on his early retirement to bed that something was not quite as she had pictured it. As he had done the same this evening, she had only grown increasingly suspicious. She hugged the chill air to her as she tried to resolve the conundrum, allowing everything else that was onboard, or to come, to fade into the background of this more pertinent concern.

The moon was high by the time Jack wondered out to the same sanctuary, the air still so fresh as to prod at his nostrils and chest. He tried to forget about the instinct that had pulled him from his discussion with Mr Butler to this place, out in the open. He still wore the remnants of dinner, had not taken the rest of the task on as he had promised he would, his loose tie and buttons the only sign that he had contemplated going to bed at all. The errand felt foolish, since it was based merely on conjecture and the possibilities of what Phryne Fisher might be doing with her late night hours were endless. 

It was a surprise, then, that conjecture followed through.

He saw her perched - her heels having found the first rung of the railing - on the curve of the bow, peering fearlessly out into the blackness. She was like a water nymph, to him who had no knowledge of the mishap of her name, suspended in her whites with her scarf escaping into the breeze. He stopped instantly to consider her then, as though he were examining a painting that stretched beyond the canvass into real life. Her hair flickered vaguely as she took in the night; she was suddenly something surreal. It was the moon, he reasoned, their situation, which drew him on to a feeling that standing there was like standing over the burrow, or near the looking glass. The little fiction of her parlour that had led him here was but the beginning as this White Rabbit rushed passed him in a whirlwind of dreams, as yet unrealised. He guessed that the dream had, in fact, begun a great deal earlier, in amongst the tiles of a dead man’s washroom, but as his hands found the pockets of his trousers, he knew that here it began in earnest. 

“The view really is much better from up here, Jack,” she spoke, as though he had made a decision to bring her to life. She did not even turn to look back at him.

“I don’t know that it is,” he returned in admiration of her, his ease and intended idle flirtation turning to seriousness as soon as it was said. He knew that the offering would cross them back into step and he did it with conscious effort, after what had been said about choice and importance and need. 

He did it for her.

Phryne took a hold of the rail and turned to fix him with a look of pure delight. There flickered a hope that her Inspector had returned. 

“I think the sea’s on my side on this one,” she grinned, “just come and look at the way it reflects the moon.” 

“If it reflects the moon,” he felt a grip in his gut as he was about to say the next, it was reckless, “it’s only because you asked it to.” 

Phryne did not move but for the shadow of a smile, which appeared in soft thanks as she idly remembered a quotation from Shakespeare on a stage that seemed suddenly very far away. 

Jack cleared his throat.

“I would be careful of all those silks,” he diverted, approaching and leaning tentatively to glance over the railing into the black sea beyond. Phryne’s eyes flickered with mirth. 

“Why don’t you come up and rescue me?” she challenged, her confidence defying the very thought. Really, with that tuxedo as it was, it could hardly be helped. He glanced up at her, his expression unreadable. She glanced right back for a moment that could only be filled with consideration, and soon enough he put his hand to the rail and stepped up next to her. The height was heady, but the churning cold cleared the haze and Jack could not conceal the refreshment he suddenly felt. “Exhilarating, isn’t it?” she pressed him, closing her eyes and turning her face back to the oncoming rush of air. 

He looked only at her for a moment and then gave in to her insistence, her whim. The breeze streamed through his hair and sought out the hollow of his neck, the cluttered corners of his mind. He breathed deeply, aware of the warmth of her hand on the rail inches from his. “You have me there,” he finally acknowledged. A beat passed, and soon he felt her gaze on him again and could not help but face her. 

“So, am I forgiven?” her eyes searched his face for assurance, even as her smile tilted in the cheek of her belief that she did not necessarily need forgiveness. Jack watched her for a moment, taking in the dark blue hues that surrounded them, which seemed to settle into the contours of her face with a softened smudge before they descended into other contours that must escape his notice, or risk his ruin. 

He wondered briefly for which offence she queried forgiveness. His mind was awash with the offences that he had taken, but as he confronted the earnestness of her question, he found them all wanting, meaningless and petty. She had never promised him anything, so to take it and punish her was a crime suddenly disgusting to him. There was only one thing, one charge that he could lay at her feet that might hold water. So, he turned his honesty on her and heaped the concerns and difficulties he was feeling into the single obvious thing that stood between them. His earlier heated words returned to him. They would argue again, he was sure, but for now they could set it all aside and start again. 

“Just promise me you’ll lay as low as you possibly can,” he offered by way of middle ground, for if she promised to at least try and avoid risk to them all, and especially herself, then he could admire again the quick-thinking mind that had wrought as much success for them as it had trouble. 

xXx  
Phryne did promise it - with an unabashed jab at his double entendre - and she kept that promise as far as she was able. She could not be held accountable, after all, for the fact that the voyage did not go with all the tedium expected of weeks of good behaviour. The death of a ladies maid was hardly a variable she could control, let alone ignore and she had said as much when Jack had urged her not to get involved. That the ship-board Master at Arms had been a complete incompetent had only provided the buoyancy to her deviating dingy, already afloat. Ever compelled by what they seemed to do best, it had not taken too long before she and Jack put the matter to rest, albeit with some difficulty to explain not one peculiar knack for investigation, but two. 

In fact, it felt rather like the blink of an eye before they made their steady approach to what was undoubtedly a highlight to which Phryne had looked forward right on their leaving Melbourne. A magnificent feat of engineering, and a testament to mankind’s determination - and, perhaps, savage arrogance - the Suez Canal was a fascination of the highest order and Phryne had all but hustled the party up on decks to witness a great portion of their passage into the Mediterranean. With its three main ports at Suez, Ismaïlia and Said, and two later additions at Tewfik and Fuad, the Canal had come a long way since its early development in 1860. These were no longer mere stopping points to mark the journey, simply noting the wind speeds and shifts in the Canal bed, but bustling towns, and strategic outposts for the supply of water to Cairo and other parts of the Egyptian Sultanate through the Great Bitter Lake. The British still maintained a heavy presence after the Treaty of 1922, with Port Fuad marking a pivotal point on the Asiatic side of the Canal and the site of the proposed Palestine railway. 

Colonel Pickford had been game enough to share with them the tensions the whole business was causing. Well, he’d been game enough to share them with the delightful Miss Fisher. It really had been a very good night for that third glass of whiskey, after all. 

It seemed that the local population was growing increasingly resistant to the presence of so much industry in their region, considering that a large portion of the proceeds from that industry were spirited away by the very companies that were establishing them on very shoddy agreements with the landowners. The result had been a steady increase of threats and a few violent outbreaks, most pertinently at Port Ismaïlia. The British had stationed a small force there to keep the peace, but the diplomacy of such an endeavour was growing very delicate very quickly. Though she kept this thought from the Colonel, who seemed a great deal worried by the circumstance and particularly about the people who would suffer were access to water not controlled so amicably as it was under the present arrangement, Phryne wondered whether the people of the Suez did not have the right to bear the fruits of their land.

All was peaceful for their, crossing, however, and although Phryne would much rather they had been on a smaller vessel, closer to the ground and the intricate business of the crossing, they had been privy to some marvellous views of the desert as it stretched away toward the horizon. The sun setting over The Great Bitter Lake had almost been enough to allow Jack to relax after the strange affairs onboard and the increasing nearness of Rome. He had stood on the deck with Phryne - as had become a sort of habit for them, almost a replacement for drinks in her drawing room - and had reflected on the manner in which the sun turned the sand almost to purple. 

The voyage had been a surprisingly reflective one for Jack, once he had put aside the complications of Phryne and a murder aboard. The consideration of such a long journey had brought back a swarm of memories from the last time he had travelled so far from home, though the conditions then had not been quite so comfortable. That they were steadily drawing nearer to the continent on which he had lost so many around him could not be ignored, even in amongst the rest of it, and visions of the War were everywhere. He sensed that Phryne felt it too, but was aware that she had spent much more time abroad, after the killing had ended, than he had. She had cleansed her memories of many things, in a way, and he had avoided bringing it up directly. 

It all seemed so very far away in the lost land of the Suez, anyway, like nothing at all was real and the desert stretched on to Infinity instead of large cities, and modernisation, and war. It struck him that, while this was the very centre of burgeoning greatness, it was birthed in an air of surreality. On arriving at Port Said, Dot also expressed great surprise at the sheer rural pleasantry of the Canal and particularly its accompanying towns. Her eyes were bright with it as she reflected on their surroundings to the other members of the Daring Four, "Isn't it amazing how rough a place it is, considering it’s supposed to be a marvel of the modern world?" 

Phryne, however, seemed almost affronted by the thought, her love for the charms of the area offended at the seeming lack of adventure in the air, “I wouldn’t be so hard on them, Dot. At least they had the decency to build a Savoy.”

“And that,” Jack teased, “is the mark of civilisation.” Phryne glanced over at him. 

“Well, it is certainly a sign that, despite appearances, there is more bubbling beneath the surface of the place than the hoards of flea-bitten camels suggest,” she was smiling despite the censure, “And to be perfectly honest, I can’t quite see the appeal in having the whole world look the same.” 

“Provided they have a Savoy,” Dot countered cheekily, her smile a wisp of a thing pressed into her cheek. Phryne blinked. 

“It seems Dot has learned everything I could possibly teach her,” she grinned, “perhaps its time we set her adrift?” 

“Or out for her first taste of The Wilds,” Jack returned, waggling his eyebrows, “see how she handles those hoards of flea-bitten camels.” 

“With aplomb and finesse, I am sure,” came the steady assurance of Mr Butler. 

“I wouldn’t doubt it for a second,” agreed Phryne with a bubbling laugh. 

xXx

The reality of The Wilds, as Jack had referred to them, was surprisingly sophisticated when the party reached the end of the gangplank. The bustle of port was as pulsing as Melbourne’s wharf and greatly exaggerated by the rushed tones of Arabic that circulated with supreme urgency, the subconscious desire to make sense of the mayhem leaving most of the party tripping over the foreign syllables with increasing bewilderment. Phryne, of course, was in her element. While her Arabic was sketchy at best and barely existent at honest, her ears drank up the sound with eager attempts to absorb it all through her very pores if she could. She was clothed in a collared white shirt and khaki jodhpurs, which were causing an equal amount of intrigue and outrage. Her face was protected from the sun by a matching pith, which closely resembled the ones worn by the nursing corps in North Africa during the war. From it emerged a cream scarf of pure chiffon, which wrapped itself neatly around her chin and over one shoulder.

One could not simply alight from a ship in Port Said, Jack surmised; an entrance was always necessary. 

Early drinks at the Savoy were the first port of call, a complimentary service for those travelling on to Europe despite the fact that most would sail before they had need of a room at the hotel. The decor was predictably Egyptian, papyrus reeds painted on every wall in a gorgeously art-deco arrangement of gold and soft blue, carefully accentuating the gilt staircase that directed patrons upstairs into what were sure to be rooms full of wicker and billowing cream curtains. Phryne assumed that there must be some agreement between the hotelier and the shipping line that proved mutually beneficial and she was certainly most grateful for the deliciously refreshing hibiscus blend that greeted them at the hand of a very solemn young gentleman in a deep red fez. Her attempts at conversation were almost comically futile, but served as a sort of game until she was satisfied that the time of sail was set and she could properly take in the Port without fear of being left behind. 

Not that Colonel Pickford would have stood for that. 

The sun had already passed its apex by the time she was truly amongst the heart of the town, her sturdy boots stepping out amongst the almost assaulting smells of Port Said’s greatest attraction. Unlike the Savoy, the town outside had succumbed to the harsher elements of its extreme placing and the dry clay of several buildings seemed to crack under the heat and dust, covered only by chipping paint and strategically draped carpet. The Central Bazaar stretched carefully along the outskirts of the expatriate district, like a delightful moss trying its chances with the most nutritious part of the tree; it felt rather as though she and the others were barely three feet from the Savoy when she heard the telling cries of the salesmen at work in their limited English. 

“Precious Lapis Lazuli! A beautiful gem for a beautiful woman!” came the first, heavily-accented cry.

“Constantinople Carpet! A very special deal!” ran the second, as though vying for attention. 

“Best price! Best price!” 

There were other broken dialects as well, a little of what might be called French, some German - though that was limited and yelled in slightly softer tones Dot noted before she had become distracted by a dazzling set of old Egyptian paintings and was caught into a discussion she had not wished to have, with only Mr Butler - who came immediately to her aid - for support. Phryne was moved by none of the cajoling, choosing to look only at that which caught her eye on its own merit and seemingly oblivious to Dot’s plight, but for her knowledge that Mr Butler would take good care of her and the slight grin that creased the side of her face. How often had she seen nurses return with pieces of the original treasure of this Pharaoh or that? Or a digger swindled beyond belief on the same promise? She was well and truly in command and thought it might be a grand adventure for Dot to haggle her way to freedom. She had little idea of Jack following close behind utterly horrified by the glances that followed her. On this occasion, it had nothing at all to do with flirtation, for there was none of it to be had, but with the barely-concealed, predatory ownership of entitled eyes. 

They were not in Australia any more. 

Of this, Phryne was well-aware in her wandering and had not anticipated, nor sought his careful protective instinct. There had been sheiks enough in Paris, Italy, certainly in Constantinople. There had been an offer of a million camels once - she was assured she ought to be flattered. As it was, she ignored the sensation, not inclined to allow it to rob her of her afternoon, and certainly not about to capitulate to the prevailing understanding that women ought to be in tow behind a responsible male, or nowhere at all. She found her way with confidence amongst the palette of brightly coloured tents as they were separated from the others, stopping where she would and entering not a single conversation with any vendor - since to do so would only end in a sale, or deepest offence. She seemed to manage it with a careful holding of the hand, clad in light brown leather and they seemed to accept her polite disinterest with deference. 

“I’d better pick up something to take home to Aunt P,” she said brightly after repeating the ritual a number of times, “she’ll never forgive me for whisking away on such little notice.” 

“And you think gifts will appease her?” Jack asked, looking suspiciously from side to side and back for any sign of Dot and Mr Butler.

“Not at all,” she answered, daring to pick up a delightful little coffee urn of beaten brass as her grin spread across her lips, “but it might serve as a distraction to allow me the chance to slip away before her sermon grows too righteous, and she’s able to properly associate me with the crime.” 

He met her impish gaze as though it had been written for him. 

“I doubt that will match her blue delft tea service,” he offered by way of sardonic chastisement. It only seemed to encourage her, however, and Phryne quirked her head in open curiosity. 

“And are you much acquainted with Aunt Prudence’s blue delft tea service?” 

“By observation only, I assure you.”

“I had no idea you had such an eye for fine china,” she quipped. 

“Nor you a taste for Turkish Coffee?” he queried, stepping out of her little ring of teasing. 

“It’s not for the faint-hearted, certainly,” she returned, “we drank bucket loads of the stuff in Montparnasse. Very Bohemian, you understand.” 

“Very,” he added gravely as she placed the coffee pot back and settled beside him as they moved on to the next stall, absolutely ignoring the vendor who had all but fallen over himself when Phryne had put hand to product. “We seem to have lost Miss Williams,” he added after a moment. 

“Mr Butler is under strict instructions to stay with her and return her to the hotel in good time,” Phryne said, somewhat matter-of-factly, “she’ll be fine.” It made Jack feel foolish to think he had suspected Miss Fisher of recklessness on the part of her companion, however rightly he had asserted it weeks before. He tried to relax, since Phryne had assured him that Mr Butler knew what he was about.

“And you?” she asked conversationally. 

“And I, what?” they passed a tent that wreaked to high Heaven of every kind of spice. 

“Will you bring back something from your travels?” It seemed the most natural thing in the world. 

“And to whom would I be bringing this something?” he asked, a tinge of apprehension still about him. Phryne appraised him carefully as her hands slid into place in the small of her back, and Jack thought she looked all the world like a colonial nomad, bound to ride a camel any second. She only lacked a riding crop, and an entourage of porters. Phryne found it interesting that his first thought in buying something was to attribute its necessity as a gift. Must one have a someone to buy it for? She attributed the uneasiness that descended to what must still be the freshness of his divorce. 

She didn’t probe, though she wanted to, filing the thought away and burying it with a quip. “I’m sure Hugh could always use a new rug or two,” the thought was thoroughly hilarious. 

“The only place Collins would have place for a rug or two would be in wearing them in to work,” Jack countered with amusement. 

Phryne chuckled, “Perhaps a little change in uniform is just what the Constabulary needs!”

“Why? Are you afraid you’ll look dull in black?” he said. She blinked, at first, not expecting the comment at all. Her natural talent for masking, however, swiftly took over. 

“Frankly, Jack, I’m appalled,” she lifted her nose as though at the very idea that women could be police officers, her cheek returning in due course to offset it, “I never look dull in anything.”

He did not have time to laugh.

With the speed of a desert asp Phryne was very suddenly everywhere at once. His shoulders were seized and his blazer upset by the rapid change in direction, the quick confines of a very small alleyway between tents enveloping them into the thick cloth of either side as she pulled them into it. He ought to be used, by now, to the actions of hers that seemed to spring upon him like a gazelle, but he doubted he would ever get used to being forced into small spaces with her on short notice. He tried to get his bearings; they were concealed from the crowd here, her back flush against the tent’s side even as she seemed entirely too closely pressed to him. They were face to face, but for the fact that her head was turned towards the street, peering out where it could, looking for something. Any attempt to gain some distance from her was not compelling in light of the flexible material around them. He froze, her hands still holding his shoulders in place where she had grabbed him.

“Don’t look now,” she said, as though they were having sandwiches on the Principessa, “but there’s a gentleman out there with a weapon and a very good knack for matching footsteps.” 

The announcement only served to unsettle Jack further at the fact that, in all his searching, he had not spotted this gentleman. There was no pause to dwell on this, however, as she soon began to shuffle them along towards the other end of what barely passed for a gap. It was awkward and Jack could not help but feel his limbs rigidly everywhere they should be. The closer they drew to two support lines, which crossed in the midst of the alley and drew the tent material right into their way, the surer Jack was they could not get through. 

“I hope you’ve packed a clear escape in that hat,” he muttered. She only turned to make a face at him. 

“Here,” she said and he waited for her to hand him the offending item, but received instead a swift push downwards to the shoulders and a steady panic as she lifted her knee. He retracted from her like he had been scorched as the inside edge of that knee drew up alongside his hip. Phryne’s smile was diabolic as she silently laughed at him. “Your knee, Inspector,” was all she offered by way of instruction. He finally understood, dropping down as much as he could in the claustrophobia and bending a knee for her to scale. She planted a boot firmly on it in her haste - the force of which he would later complain about - and used the leverage to wiggle her way up and over the crossed-line obstacle, landing with a thud impossibly light on the other side and with a clear path to the next aisle of the bazaar. She straightened her hat with a bright smile, but it quickly vanished as she realised that the solution would not be a repeat performance. 

Her knees were now much too far away for Jack to get over. 

It was his turn to make a face, and he rolled his eyes as he turned to the cross where the support chords connected and tested them with a heavy lean. They gave a little, allowing space for him to perhaps get a foot up and over them. Whatever he did, it was not with the same elegance, and when he landed he was certain he had not maintained the same air of control as she had managed before the space opened up for their escape. He said nothing as they made their way to a new opening. 

“Do you think we lost him?” Jack asked as they emerged on the other side into the bustle of the crowd once more, unsure since he had not seen the man himself. 

“Lost him?” Phryne returned with a frown, “I hope you’re not losing your nerve already, Jack. What I think is that we have the advantage of surprise now and I fully intend to discover just what all this curiosity was about.” 

“Of course,” was all he offered drily with a distinct lack of surprise. 

xXx

The woman was gone, disappeared for all he could make sense of it. He clutched at his pistol with agitation, the handle clammy in his hand as he considered his instructions. It had been a simple task, one act to set his record straight and commend himself - but she was gone and his eyes still scanned frantically across the crowds to correct his grievous error some time after he had lost them. There were robes being measured for length, cufflinks being engraved, even a small café that held a lamb sizzling within over roasting coals, but he could not spy the drift of perfect cream in the breeze, or the distinction of cheekbones beneath the shift. He froze where he was, trying not to imagine the anger he would face if he failed. He did not know how long he had been standing in place. This, he was told, was their last chance before - 

There! 

In the press of patrons across the way, he could spy the telltale tilt of that hat. He clutched his weapon closer and stepped back into the recesses of a trinket shop. He tilted his head to see out and noticed her just behind a gaggle of women hidden beneath their black burqa. The contrast was incredible. He slipped from his position and followed the line of tents closely, hiding in the shadows where it permitted and turning his back here and there as he made his way forward. He could not see the man who had accompanied her, had walked behind her like a dog. 

It would be his victory, then, to snatch his woman from beneath his nose, and deserved. 

He edged closer - she seemed to be looking for someone - him? She turned suddenly, and so did he, into the face of a vendor of fine stones. The man cursed him for his clumsiness and shoved him back where he had almost smothered him. He raised one hand in apology, the other heavy with the weight of his pistol. He turned back, desperate to know if she had sighted him, or made a run for it. No! There she was, her head turned to another vendor who seemed to be attempting to sell to her a papyrus of some awful forgery. 

Now was the time. 

Stepping out into the throng, he caught the wave towards her, holding his pistol at just the right angle and waiting until it carried him to a position behind her. Timing would be everything, he must not arouse the suspicions of the vendor. There was still no sign of her guardian. The conversation ended, a gloved hand raised to dismiss the sale as she made off in the other direction. He cocked his weapon. He raised it. Placing it squarely into her back, he swept forward and took a tight grip of her elbow. 

“Say nothing,” he whispered hoarsely at her, “or I will kill you where you stand.” She raised a hand, just as she had before, as though to appease him. To assure him she would not make a sound. It would be easy now. Foreigners disappeared often in Port Said, especially in these dangerous times. It would seem like nothing, a mugging, or a killing for revenge. He would be well clear of her body before the authorities even began the search. 

They walked a little ways through the bazaar, weaving through it all until the came across the edge of it and an alleyway proper, between a house and guild of some kind. The streets here were a warren, he knew, so he slowly edged her forward until he was sure they could not be seen and he stopped in his tracks. 

“On your knees,” he hissed malevolently. She hesitated, her hands now quivering in the shifting shadow of the afternoon. She was afraid. How predictable. For all that he had heard of this extraordinary woman… She took to her knees, first one bending and then the other until she knelt. He raised his hand and held his sneer in place, ready to pull the trigger and do what must be done. 

“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” came a sleek sound from behind him, attached seemingly to the cold press of a barrel to the base of his skull. It felt oddly relieving in the heat of the day, even this late into the afternoon. His back went rigid as he tried to make sense of it. “Drop it,” came the next crisp syllable, sounding rather like a cat purring elegantly, even in its demanding tone. “I said -”

He dropped his pistol, raising his hands and turning to face her even as fear wretched into his lungs and the consequences of his failure became apparent. When he rounded, he found a figure draped in a rich purple yelek, her black cap of hair covered carefully by a matching scarf and veil. Her blue eyes sparkled over it as he could see her smile hinted under the smooth contours of the sheer fabric. Lined with a gold cuff at the ankle, he noted that even now she wore harem pants, rather than the skirted robe attributed to most women, and a gold sash to highlight her waist. 

It alarmed him. 

“It’s all right, Dot, you can get up now,” Phryne said calmly as she stepped forward to force him back, kicking aside his gun with newly acquired Egyptian slippers - which she was certain would follow her everywhere from the bath and back, now that she had felt their exquisite craftsmanship. Dot had already turned to see what was happening, her face white even as she gathered a sort of determined resolve as she stood and dusted off the trousers which were now causing her perhaps more alarm than the potential shooter. Jack stepped forward to wrest the pistol from the ground, Mr Butler not far behind him as they delighted in having found their man.

“I’m sure you’ve got an excellent reason for following us about,” Phryne suggested as she cocked her own pistol, the pearl handle glinting out in the passing sun from beneath her grip.

He said nothing. 

“Who do you work for?” Jack pressed further. 

“No English,” he said as clearly as the sky was blue. Phryne’s eyes narrowed. 

“I wouldn’t push her, if I were you,” Jack warned, the pistol in his hand held low and nonchalant in his confidence that Phryne was threat enough. Dot had dropped back beside Mr Butler, glaring just as fiercely as she could despite her retreat. 

“No English,” the man cut out again, before spitting theatrically at Phryne’s feet. Jack was sure she would shoot him and as a shot rang out he wasn’t entirely sure she hadn’t. A bullet plowed into the man’s shoulder from above and as the party spun around, they caught only glimpse of the tail end of a robe as the shooter made a dash for it. In their shock, their stalker took his moment.

“Miss!” Dot cried as he dashed for another small, winding street. 

“You go after him,” Phryne declared, pointing up at the roof, “I’ll take care of this -” Whatever fine description followed, Jack could not hear it as she dashed after the quarry that had almost been hers. 

Vengeance, Jack mused, for the nearness of his spittle to her slippers. 

They gave chase, each in their own direction and Dot and Mr Butler made their choices, Dot charging after her mistress and the butler figuring that the Inspector could use some support. Small buildings dashed passed and Jack watched as his assailant leapt across each narrow little gap that registered as the street below. He had to make it up onto the roof somehow. He stopped in his rushing, looking from washing line to window sill to abandoned crate. Nothing looked too promising. He hurried through a nearby door, they had to have a set of stairs. 

Phryne had greater luck, her quarry leaving a trail of scarlet in his wake and beginning to slow as the shock and pain of his gunshot wound took over. She rounded a corner with agility, Dot scampering after moments before dust and feathers erupted in front of them. The runner had upended some crates that housed a few devastated hens. Phryne halted with a grunt, shielding her eyes at first. Quickly recovering, she picked her way through the remnants and leapt after him - Dot hesitated, wanting to help the poor creatures and yelling her apology as she left them behind. 

After screams and assorted curses in Arabic, Jack emerged on the roof, Mr Butler beside him and seemingly unfased by the harem they had just passed through. It took but a moment to locate their target, leaping from house to house in a full black robe. Jack gave chase, sprinting towards a gap and clearing it with a huff of effort. He was alarmed when Mr Butler landed beside him, a shrug all he had to offer in return for Jack’s incredulous stare. They pelted together towards the next hurdle. 

Phryne took aim as she cut into a long street, the original stalker leaning against the wall and clearly struggling. “Stop!” she yelled, though she was not prepared to shoot him - there was much he still had to tell her. The exclamation only served to rejig his confidence and he made a bolt for the end of the street. Phryne growled and forced herself forward again. 

It seemed to be some kind of wooden lattice, and as Jack observed the hole in it, he assumed that the disappearing act the shooter had pulled had involved tumbling through this flimsy roof design and into the plaza below. He swiftly followed, landing with a thud and then a groan as he realised there were three different exits from the plaza and no clear sign of his escape. He looked instantly to the sanded floor, noting the scuffle of it where the man must have landed. Mr Butler dropped down beside him. 

“There,” the older man barked as they both latched on to the trail of footsteps into the first alley exit. 

Phryne’s chest was beginning to heave, much to her chagrin and she sensed Dot had lagged behind her by quite a bit as she cut into the next street and halted as her senses picked up on a problem. There were two possible choices of direction and a cobbled street to boot. Telling which way he had gone would be impossible if she did not act quickly. She rushed to where the streets intersected, looking one way and then the next and seeing absolutely nothing, not even a sign of blood, which was just her luck. She tore the veil from her face and let it fall to her shoulders as she tried to breathe, turning on the spot as though the action might make the outcome of this scenario somehow different. 

“Damn!” she yelled loudly, when it appeared not to be the case.

The footprints took Jack and Mr Butler on beyond another small stack of houses, though the winding had begun to confuse their direction and Jack began to worry that they were running themselves into danger. They charged on and on, and a heaviness began to appear in the Inspector’s gut, even as it settled into his limbs. 

This was not promising. 

His agitation gave rise to another burst of energy and he charged down the next lane even as the sand turned to cobbles beneath him and he knew he would no longer be able to track the man. It grew futile as he turned and turned again, now no longer sure he was even heading in the right direction. Mr Butler kept up with him as he too perceived the increasingly unlikelihood of their success. 

It wasn’t until he ran headlong into another figure in the street that he conceded his loss; the tangle of scented silks and gasp of outrage in familiar tones cutting across everything until his gaze was locked in place by passionate blue eyes. 

“Miss Fisher?” he stumbled over his discovery, “How - ?”

“Oh damn it all, Jack!” she cried on seeing him there, just as Dot shuffled up behind her, panting as she leaned against the wall of a nearby house. Mr Butler was not far behind Jack, his breath also losing its way in the sweat now appearing finely along his brow. 

“No sign of him,” Jack cut out, clearly as frustrated by the news as Phryne would be to hear it.

“It appears we are bested by an intricate knowledge of these streets,” she all but spat, her cheeks coloured by the exercise and their failure. 

“Who were they, do you think?” Dot asked brightly. 

“I have no idea,” Phryne muttered in her annoyance, her huffed breath now giving itself decidedly away. 

“We should report this to the authorities,” Jack offered on instinct, ever trying to keep ahead and on to the next movement. 

“I’m afraid there’s not much we could tell them, sir,” Mr Butler said. Jack knew he was right. 

“Not without giving away much to much about ourselves,” Phryne agreed. She placed her hands on her hips and allowed her mind to rifle through all that it had gathered in the encounter. 

“There’s got to be something we can do,” Jack offered, the charged nerves of the last three weeks desperate to exert themselves to some end, and thoroughly unsettled by the fact that his fears had been confirmed and then let loose. 

“There’s only one thing left to do,” Phryne conceded, cutting across his hopes with defeat of her own, “we’d better get back to the ship, or we’ll miss it.” 

As he turned to look at her, dressed in every exotic wrap of their environment, he knew she was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I realise that for a fic called ‘When in Rome’, this one has spent absolutely no time in Rome. I promise we’ll be there within minutes of the next chapter going up! It’s just that the Suez was far too tantalising a spot not to have a scene written there. Thank you for your patience. ;)


	4. A Genoan Encounter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, Phryne lands her heels on the Continent! But the pressure is mounting and the presence of local law enforcement is enough to make Jack all the more certain of his worries about this endeavour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahoy! Thank you to all for your reviews and continuing interest in this little project. :) It means a great deal and is really helpful in terms of streamlining some of my technique etc. This latest update has taken so long because I have stewed over it far longer than I should have. I’ve decided to stop trying to force the darn thing to end up in Rome too soon, as this chapter felt a little rushed because of that instinct and it lost a lot of its flair. So, I’ve decided to linger in Genoa and give it its moment for important developments! I hope you enjoy it. This truly is the last stop! :)

It was a miracle of untold grace that the Principessa was well-stocked with ice. As it clinked against Phryne’s glass, she both celebrated the fact and tried to imagine how it was possible. The heat had begun to offend as the ship left Port Said, perhaps on the back of an already-set agitation, and she had settled into the delicious refreshment of a rose-scented bath to try and alleviate the problem. A sip of bitter lemon helped a little, but her thoughts were far too full of the latest developments for her to be truly soothed. It was not simply that their quarry had slipped through their fingers - though that was quite enough to irk her - it was the fact that she had learned absolutely nothing from him in the time they had kept his back to the wall. He had escaped without offering any clue as to his purpose or the source of his mission; he had held a gun to the back of Dot’s head and she had nothing to show for it. The fact rippled beneath her skin as she raised a hand from the water and rubbed the bridge of her nose, droplets tickling their cool way down her face. 

The potential perils of the mission had always been apparent to her, but she had not anticipated being set upon before they’d even reached Rome. What had been a risk was now a threat and one that was beginning to make Jack’s earlier concerns appear in rather a different light. Before she had been chasing anonymous men down the rough streets of an Egyptian port-side town, the danger had been directly proportional to their control over the little charade, her ability - and Jack’s - to command the ruse. 

Now, they were facing a third variable, an indeterminate variable, and as Phryne put together the pieces in her mind, she wasn’t sure it wasn’t a variable that had followed them from Melbourne. Had she been a believer in coincidence, she might have been able to dismiss the growing string of events that had been occurring since she had accepted this little challenge. The crates on the dock, the murder of a ladies maid and now a mysterious gunman - all seemed peculiarly timed and suddenly uncanny. Had she been superstitious, or of a more Oriental persuasion, she might have been concerned that they were a case of poor karma. As it was, her suspicions were decidedly more practical and the possibilities were, none of them, pleasant to consider.

Whatever the stakes had been, they had just gone up and Phryne felt again the pressure of having brought all of them into it. 

“I’ll just leave this here for you, Miss,” Dot came in, as if on cue. “I managed to get that unsightly fold out of the sleeve, so it’ll be fit for wearing tonight. The gold brocade will be the perfect farewell to Egypt.” She was smiling, God bless her, and it brought a smile to Phryne’s face as well, albeit one slightly overshadowed by the sweeping consequences of her all too recent entanglement with Egyptian mythology. She forced the thought to be subordinate to the moment.

Murdoch Foyle had taken her sister from her. She would not let him steal the joys of this adventure as well. 

“Thank you, Dot,” she offered sincerely, “for a girl forced to wear trousers this afternoon, I have to say you’re holding up remarkably well.” It was a joke, of course, but they both knew she was referring to the other harrowing aspects of their experience. Dot huffed out a little laugh with her usual aura of being somewhat shy. 

“Do you know, I really think I am,” she added with a little kick of self-confidence. Phryne smiled all the more, “If I say so myself.” 

“Onward from daring escapades to iced-lemon and removing creases like a champion,” the Lady Detective raised her glass in a toast before drinking and settling a little into a more serious tone, “I’m glad you’re all right, Dot.” Dot looked down at the evening dress in her hands, trying not to think too much on what had happened in the bazaar and what it might mean. They had been in tricky situations before; this was hardly the first time she’d been threatened at gunpoint, or hustled about, but she felt the heaviness on her mistress’s shoulders and she knew that this was somehow different. It seemed considered, solemn in a manner that Miss Fisher seemed to employ at varying intervals, a demeanour that lay in direct contrast to her declarations that she hadn’t taken anything seriously since 1918. 

Dot felt - and not for the first time - that she was being worried after. 

“I’m made of stern stuff, Miss,” she answered by way of expressing that, no matter what was about to happen, Miss Fisher could be sure of her. 

Phryne turned her head at that, taking in the girl’s stance and the familiar forthrightness about her. It was an answer she had not been expecting and, although she liked what it said about her companion’s pluck and increased confidence, it had the unpleasant effect of settling something at the pit of her stomach. It was the beginning of a realisation, something that would now sit uncomfortably until she had reasoned it out. “As though I needed anymore proof of it,” she answered back earnestly, keeping the ridge of discomfort to herself. As was so often the case, she allowed the buoyancy in her voice to seep into the rest of her and forced the reality that she had spoken into being to replace that which tried to take up lodging inside of her. 

They were all fine.

Dot didn’t move, surveying her lady’s face for a moment. She didn’t know why she said next what she did, but the urge was firm and oddly necessary, “I’m really glad I came, Miss.” 

Phryne blinked and felt what was undoubtedly a gift to her - one she would better understand as she further considered her latest realisation. For now, she smiled a more sincere smile and offered gratitude in return, “So am I.” 

Really, what would she have done had Lydia Andrews not been a fool and a drug fiend? 

xXx

Jack’s head was full of a repetitive cycle of images, from sandy streets to the cold intent of a voice determined. He had stored them away, turning them over as he had adjusted the starched collar of his shirt in front of a mirror that had grown as unsettlingly familiar as the quick hands of Mr Butler that offered him each item of dress. Still these thoughts offered him nothing greater than the hardened reality of his worries. As he stood in the grand salon before the first class dining room, awaiting the opening of the doors with the other passengers, he couldn’t help but feel the futility of the ritual. 

It was all so horridly frivolous in comparison to the pressing urgency of what they were facing. 

He couldn’t keep back the image of Miss Williams, accosted by a stranger and helplessly on her knees. It made him undoubtedly angry, but he had to concede it was secondary to another feeling. The most pressing fact, which continued to impose itself on the boundaries of his resistance to it, was tinged in purple. It crept in at the corners and tapped at his shoulder, despite how much he strove to remind it that responsibility for the matter lay elsewhere. It had startled him that, in amongst everything else, the sight of Miss Fisher covered head to toe in such delicate finery should have caught him quite the way it did. Had he not seen her that way ad nauseum? Even now, the thought of rich chiffon across her cheekbones slipped in amongst his ongoing reel. He looked to the wooden flooring of the grand salon, since that thought inevitably led him to the one that had made him angrier even than Dot’s knees to the dirt. Their nefarious friend, whoever he had been, had been after Phryne. His actions had been so vilely specific; he had been intent on a swift and brutal execution in an anonymous alleyway.

Jack’s hands clenched in the small of his back. 

He was waiting for her now, would have to sit through dinner and who knew what kind of idle flirtation while someone in this ridiculous scheme was trying, rather earnestly, to kill her. Someone who possibly had henchmen aboard, or waiting as they finally docked in Genoa. A person who had no qualms about ordering a woman shot in the street. He looked up for the hundredth time, searching for her and wanting at once to be back by her side to… yell at her, quite possibly, since she would never allow him the satisfaction of wanting to protect her. He understood her capability, he understood her self-sufficiency, but it did nothing at all to stem the instinct within him and what had simply been a worry was now an urgency. The conflicting desires of wanting to allow her the autonomy she demanded and wanting very much to bundle her onto the next ship headed back to Fremantle had coalesced into the frustration that had driven the majority of his feelings toward her for this journey and he was beginning to identify the friction. 

Miss Fisher then finally appeared. She alighted on the stairs, ready to descend to dinner, and Jack caught sight of her as soon as she was present, as though he were trained. She was just as he had expected, completely unaltered by the afternoon’s events, as lavish as she pleased. He frowned intently. The harem pants had been dispensed with, the close cling of Egyptian slippers abandoned in favour of ever-fashionable gold courts with an elegant heel that turned to delicate ankle and defined the curve of her calf as it disappeared into the drippings of green and gold that were her evening-wear. He didn’t want to look at the pristine craftsmanship of deco brocade, which developed into a deeply Turkish patterning as it rose from calf to drop waist. He felt the grind of his teeth as the heavily embroidered bodice escaped beyond the slight train that highlighted her asymmetrical hemline. 

The peacock feathers that fed through her cap of black hair were entirely too much. The pressure in his chest grew worse. 

Yes, he was quite sure he wanted to exclaim loudly in her direction. 

How could she go on with such trivialities as though nothing had happened? How could - 

He stopped. 

By some mercy, he caught her face in a decidedly intimate instance. He had expected a triumphant smile, the usual confident flair beneath tailored brows. He saw instead the triangle of an uncertainty, just barely present but robbing the angles of her countenance of any joy or flippancy. Her mouth was turned ever-so-slightly down as she paused on the landing, her hands at her side, as though she were about to prepare before placing one on the rail. She closed her eyes and, as though it had never existed, the moment passed. She lifted her hand with unrivalled grace and the Miss Fisher he knew best appeared in all her ravishing glory. Jack merely stood, trying to make sense of what he had just seen. He disappeared into a kind of mechanic functionality as he lifted his arm to escort her into the dining room when the time came. 

“Welcome to the Mediterranean, Mr Ridgeway,” she offered neatly, placing her hand in the crook of his elbow. Her touch ran up Jack’s spine as much as the falling into place of this evening’s revelation ran down it. It was a voice she had used all too often, even on the Captain of the very ship on which they stood. It was a voice that accompanied the face that he saw now and not the one he had spied in a moment on the stairs. It was a voice that had blended in and out of their acquaintance. 

And it was a forgery.

“Thank you, Miss Fisher,” he answered back, trying to come to grips with the thought. Intuition pulled together the evidence and the more Jack focussed on the strange action that had preceded, the more he was certain he was correct. Of course, accuracy meant nothing in terms of understanding the meaning of it. 

“Charming as ever in white tie,” she added as they stepped away from the stairs.

“A fact that’s utterly irrelevant when standing next to you,” he said as his focus remained trained on other considerations and far from his usual filter. The compliment slipped so easily from his tongue that Phryne smiled at him. It had always been a pleasure to know that a compliment from the Inspector was sure to be sincere. 

“You seem to be recovering from this afternoon’s escapades,” she hushed. He offered her a side-long glance in an attempt not to draw attention to a change of subject.

“You make it sound positively scandalous,” he returned, keeping the conversation ambiguous and glancing around them to be assured they were not overheard. 

“Well, if that wasn’t quite scandalous enough for you, Jack, I’m rather unsure how to step up the game,” she quipped. 

“How is Miss Williams?” he conceded to his concern. Phryne’s eyes cast a shadow over her answer. There it was again! The same look he’d seen but a moment before. 

“She’s doing all right,” her voice was heavy with concern of her own.

“I’m glad to hear it,” he affirmed, wanting at once to press further, but feeling the push towards dinner more pertinently as the doors opened. 

It would have to be a discussion for another time. 

xXx

It was not a time that was quickly forthcoming.

Landing in Genoa was not at all as Phryne had expected. Italy continually surprised her with its Mediterranean style, which was so distinct from the crispness of the British upper classes and even from the Continental charm of gay Paris. It didn’t quite feel like Europe, though she thought that the tautness she perceived in Jack’s demeanour might be on account of his returning to the continent after his extended absence - if one set aside the possibility of murderous villains hiding in every crate on the docks. He was quiet through all the hustle of the offloading, standing by her side rather like a travelling companion giving an excellent performance as a bodyguard. Though boundless fun could be had imagining him in that role, when they reached the foyer of the Hotel Bristol Palace she could not avoid a quip which might get him to offer her a little space. 

“If you stand a little closer, Jack,” she muttered gaily under her breath as she watched a bellhop loading a trolley with two of her valises, which would be staying with her until they boarded the night train to Rome, “we might really be able to give that couple something to talk about.” 

Jack frowned at her a little defensively, though he was far too busy worrying to fully comprehend her meaning. He had noticed the elderly couple casting glances their way and chatting with animated expression - he had noticed just about everyone in the hotel after their run in in Port Said - but he had dismissed their intrigue as relating to Phryne’s large sunhat, rather than its having anything to do with him.

“I doubt they’re as intrigued by my presence as they are by yours,” he said. 

“And no wonder,” she shot back with breezy flair, “since I seem to come equipped with my own protection detail.” He could not mistake her meaning then, looking briefly down at his posture, rigid and poised for threat. Her blue eyes danced a little with mirth and he took a very subtle step away from her. He forced his shoulders to relax. “Better,” she said, barely concealing a laugh, “a little more tourist, a little less panthera tigris.” 

“You should be so lucky,” he mumbled by way of defence, continuing to loosen his posture. Phryne’s eyes widened in perfect unison with her smile. 

“You have no idea how much I should dearly love to learn what you mean by that, Inspector,” she purred, wishing suddenly that she had not forced him to take so large a step back.

“Mr Ridgeway,” he corrected, his eyes slipping into the sideways glance that betrayed his flirtatious side. Phryne turned her attention back to the porter, unsure whether this was merely a display of his chosen character, or something she should be genuinely interested in. 

“Easy tiger,” she murmured beneath her grin. 

“No, really, it’s fine,” Dot’s voice was suddenly audible over the bustle of the foyer, “I can manage with this one.” 

“Forgive me, signorina, but it is my job to protest,” a young steward responded, his hair shining with pomade and his face shining just as brightly with a smile to dazzle the most hardened moralist. 

“And it’s my job to keep an eye on my employer’s possessions,” Dot replied, clutching a valise that Phryne knew contained her pearl-handled pistol. 

“Well, you don’t have to take your eyes off me,” the steward responded with finesse, “a perfect compromise.” 

Phryne grinned, unable to help herself as she watched the transaction. Jack seemed to lose whatever slackness there was to his posture. Dot breathed in deeply, her shoulders dropping back as her determination rose up alongside the look in her eye, which Phryne had only seen on occasion. Where the steward was used to getting flushed looks and acquiescence, Miss Fisher knew he was in for something quite different. 

“I believe the ideal compromise would involve your doing precisely as your patron asks,” came the pert reply, all motherly scolding and utter perfection. The steward seemed struck by the hardline dressed so prettily in pink and brown, blinking before he muttered his agreement and bowed out with respect and a smile that Phryne recognised.

This was not perhaps entirely over. 

“Well,” cut in Jack, “that’ll teach him to accost young women in foyers.” Phryne could hear the laugh in his voice. She continued to watch the young man as he stepped forward and retrieved some other luggage before moving towards a very large staircase. 

“And not to wear quite so much pomade, I’m sure,” Mr Butler said authoritatively from behind them. 

Both Phryne and Jack jumped at his appearance. As though unmoved by this reaction, he stepped aside and made for the same staircase as Dot’s amorous assistant. 

“How long do you suppose he was standing there?” Phryne asked, her voice approaching a pitch that Jack was sure was the closest it had ever come to being sheepish.

“I’m sure I have no idea,” he returned in kind.   
xXx

It was late in the afternoon and the business of the porter had been quite forgotten by the time Phryne burst through the door of Jack’s suite, her countenance bright and energetic. Having been in the midst of watching the street from his window, the Inspector turned at the sudden disturbance with alarm. She had changed from her lunchtime garb, which was all but ridiculous - he was tempted to ask what else she kept in two valises. 

“We’re in luck, Jack! Just when I was worried that Genoa was going to prove thoroughly boring, that lovely group from - you haven’t changed,” she stopped in the middle of her excitement to look at him as though he’d grown an extra head. He looked straight back at her, his pert stance enough to communicate his challenge to her incredulity. 

“Miss Fisher, not everyone feels the need to make a costume change at every opportunity,” he tilted his head. Her chin coiled back towards her neck as she met his challenge with a hint of competition. 

“Mr B,” she turned her face to the other man with the ghost of smile, “can you lay out the double-breasted pinstripe? Mr Ridgeway is going out.” She leaned on his faux name, as though to make the point that whatever Jack Robinson did, Jack Ridgeway was about to embark on something quite different. 

“Certainly, Miss Fisher,” the butler nodded, returning a smile. Jack’s alarm ought to have told the butler everything he needed to know about betrayal.

“Where to, exactly?” Jack asked, feeling suddenly unseated and whitening a little as Phryne made herself at home on one of the plush chairs. One of his plush chairs. 

“La Tramoggia. It’s a little jazz club on the Via del Colle, leading onto the Old Town. I believe it translates as ‘The Hopper’ on account of the dock work - a play on words for a hopping little joint - which is more darling than I care to talk about,” her eyes were so full of light, Jack could barely believe it. Especially since there was nothing in his eyes but a dark discomfort. Seeing his lack of surety, she continued, “That lovely group we met at lunch - the ones from Tour 22? - they’ve invited us out to enjoy the evening before the train.” 

“… at a jazz club,” he could have been ten years old for the tone of worry that slipped passed his lips, having never left off from bewilderment from her sudden crash into his thoughts. Phryne’s joy seemed unstoppable then. 

“Oh yes, apparently the locals swear by it,” she continued, her voice dropping a register for effect.

“There will be dancing,” he said, as though to warn her. 

“Here you are, sir,” Mr Butler returned, laying a gorgeous blue pinstriped suit across the bed. Jack jerked a slight nod in thanks and then turned back to Phryne, who watched him expectantly. He swiftly frowned as the air thickened. 

“Is that all?” he asked by way of ushering her back out of his door. Her eyes shifted from side to side, as though she were - rather theatrically - thinking.

“Yes, I think so,” she offered, though she made no move to suggest that she might be leaving, having said her piece. 

There was a heavy pause. 

Jack looked to the suit and back at Phryne. She continued her bright-eyed expectation. After a moment, he tilted his head toward the door with dramatic overemphasis. He could see her mind work, as though determining how calculatingly innocent she would have to look to get him to change his mind. She gave up when she noted his continuing resilience, pointed as ever. She gave a loud sigh as she rolled her eyes, flopping her hands on the armrests and getting up finally. 

“I’ll see you downstairs in an hour. And yes Jack,” she grinned as she ducked back through the door with the same wave of energy with which she’d come in, “there will be dancing.” 

xXx

It was Phryne’s turn to be kept waiting at the foot of the stairs and she wondered if Jack had done it purposely after her little manoeuvre in his room. She considered the hustle. What had been a mere trifle for her for all their time together, had suddenly become a pertinent question for consideration. She didn’t mean to boss him about - well, not on all occasions - it just seemed to be the way between them. Or rather, it seemed to be her way. It simply seemed to happen, to be reflected upon afterward with the cruel glare of hindsight. She had hardly thought of it at all when it was taking place. 

Frankly, she didn’t think she could help it. 

Yet, she could not deny the abrasive edge that had repeatedly returned and proved to be frustratingly uncomfortable from the moment he had first raised his distaste for the treatment. Though she was reckless in many things, she was never careless with what was truly important, with the people she cared about. She pushed and prodded, of course, but only against those things which she perceived were locked into place and holding people down. Well, that and the very slightest bit of fun. She felt the same pressure she had as Dot had stood by her bath-side. Was there something happening here she had missed by oversight, rather than intention? She would never deliberately hurt him. She would never design to make him feel as though he were a trifle to be toyed with.

On the contrary, he - 

Her thoughts halted as her eyes cast across a pair of black brogues on the stair just above her and then climbed up the neat cut of a deep navy blue. There was nothing to compare with a properly-tailored suit, the way it emphasised and complimented thigh, waist, chest - excepting perhaps the lopsided smile that had greeted her time and again across other rooms and the soft, yet earnest gaze that settled so decidedly and seemingly only for the purpose of unsettling something else. Jack’s hand rested casually on the banister, the other in his pocket as he watched her take in the effect. 

His smile grew ever so slightly. 

He was late. He knew it, and she wondered if it was somehow a statement from him. If she was determined to see him downstairs in an hour, then the fact that it was five minutes passed eight could be a matter of control, of his terms. Phryne wasn’t sure which ought to be more upsetting, the fact that he might deliberately take his time, or the fact that she would instantly forgive him - with thanks to the gift that was this evening’s addition to his wardrobe. Bravo, Mr Harper. Despite her ability to hide just about anything beneath rouge and a daring shade of lipstick, Phryne thought she could see the victory in Jack’s eyes. It burned up her spine like the spark of gunpowder. His nonchalant pose, a potential little act of defiance - if he was fighting back in this way, this might be as close as she would ever get to seeing Jack Robinson being a rebel. 

The thoughts it conjured were not ones she would likely share with him at any near juncture. As was not her usual modus operandi, she fought her first urge. 

“Well,” she stated off-handedly, instead, “you, sir, should give Mr Butler a raise.” Or she should. After so much silence on his descent, her smile was electric as she turned on her heel with just as much joie de vivre as she could summon - which was, of course, a very great deal.

More than impressed with himself, Jack simply stepped from his makeshift pedestal and followed her into the night air. It had hardly been his intention to create any sort of meaning out of the moment, but he had felt a sort of flare in his chest as he had - once again - been shuffled into behaviour that wasn't his. Instead of the anger or discomfort he had felt before, however, this flare finally seemed to summon a hearty sense of action. It had been rash and more a test if anything else. If she would not listen to him, perhaps he could make his point in a different language? The result had not been altogether unpleasant, his acted nonchalance about his stolen five minutes gaining that quick glint in her eyes that usually made way for calculation. She understood him, he was sure. He had only then to consider whether or not he wished to claim it as some sort of victory. 

He didn’t pay much mind to the other sensation, which seemed to drift between them as headily as her French perfume. Perhaps some aspect of his mind sensed the inherent danger of going down that path. 

As they left the hotel and made their way to the waiting motor, he chose to focus instead on the mission at hand. His instincts were still piqued, but had begun to settle into the feeling of finally being in Italy - as well as the lingering sense that they would be there for some time and that rife paranoia would neither be good for their cover nor for his nerves. He used their time alone in the car to ease into the more relaxed character of a dilettante at play, a tourist to this playground - which would no doubt be in full swing at ‘The Hopper’. 

The venue did not disappoint.

With every hint of basement illegality, the cloying air of tobacco sweetened the room with playful seduction. As they descended a small staircase, his eyes cast across the room, which was smaller than he had thought it would be. Little round tables filled just about every conceivable space, but for a small square of the floor reserved, he was sure, for who knew what kind of tawdry display. Couples were ensconced in quiet conversations that needed even fewer words, and despite the whisper of intimacy, the room had filled with a steady vibration of sound. A band in the far corner added to the hubbub with the sound of jumping brass, reminding Jack that his earlier concerns about dancing would undoubtedly be rewarded. 

He tried in earnest to turn the mind of his inner Detective Inspector inside out as he perceived at least two acts that might be considered criminal in Melbourne. He had never seen Phryne’s smile so wide. Saving him from his sudden need to warn a few patrons, she slipped her gloved hands into the corner of his elbow and tugged him along as she would, seeking out company he had not yet seen. He recognised them as a small party from Tour 22 that he had met at lunch; three young women set themselves regally on a chaise longue that had its back set to the back wall of the place, their alternate blonde, brunette and red hair something that might have been intentional but for their only having known each other a few weeks. Tails of smoke curled passed cigarette holders as they took in Jack’s approach. 

Their chaperone, Alfred Merton - a thirty-something actor from London - was everything that elegance demanded, right down to a thin-lipped moustache that would become a trademark in time, though not for him. At his side was another chaperone, though the term was used loosely and almost alarmingly, considering the boy’s age. He could be no more than seventeen, though he sported what he could of the same moustache - the elder man clearly a sort of mentor. He was a young art historian called Vincent, from what Jack had gathered in amongst the throng of introductions, from St Louis and going on to study art history at Yale. Jack had been surprised to see him amongst the older elements of the group at lunch, let alone in such a place. 

“Phryne!” called Merton, waving her down as though they’d been friends for an age. “How charming that you’ve come - and I see you’ve dragged Mr Ridgeway along with you! How did you manage it?” His cravat did not seem to move, no matter how wildly he gestured and it was all but miraculous to Jack. 

“If I reveal that secret, Freddie,” Phryne answered with all her steady candour, “I risk losing him to your many charms.” 

Jack tried not to shift under his collar at the attention and the assertion. 

“I’m not sure my charms are quite that many,” he joked lightly back, though a wicked glint crossed his gaze. “Come! Sit! We were just getting comfortable. You of course met Vincent at the hotel and these are Molly, Bridget and Annabel respectively.” Each girl nodded in time to her name, but Vincent merely kept to a contained smile. Jack tipped his head in greeting. “They’re a very talkative bunch, I see,” Fred offered with a roll of his eyes.

“It’s practically a riot,” Phryne smiled as she deposited her fox fur on the back of her chair and drew a glass of wine into her hand. 

“I fear it might be up to us, Phryne darling, to keep the party alive before your train to Rome,” Fred returned, clinking the crystal of his own glass against her newly-acquired one. 

The turn of phrase caught Jack off guard, gliding far too close to the truth for comfort. 

“If you’re enlisting Miss Fisher’s help, I think you might find it an easier task making trouble than keeping anyone alive,” he quipped, before thinking, and sat down on the chair next to his companion. Phryne blinked over the top of her glass at him and Fred seemed surprised by the remark. 

Jack wondered if he were at all cut out for undercover work. 

“It speaks,” the actor suddenly gushed, “and hilariously! Oh darling, I absolutely must get one. Where on earth did you find him?”

“Australia,” Phryne answered without hesitation, Jack felt the heat under his collar once more. 

“And badly-behaved?!” Fred was only encouraged by Jack’s apparent embarrassment, referencing the colony’s penal history and staring at him unabashedly.

“If you do discover her true sources, Fred, you’d better speak to Mr Ford about mass manufacture,” came a sleek reply from the redhead - Bridget, Jack thought - “otherwise I fear this party could turn ugly.” 

“Quite,” added Molly, her fiercely flirtatious gaze confusing Jack until he made sense of it - her assertion seemed well and truly intent in fighting over him. The realisation stalled any further witty remark from him. How the situation had deteriorated so rapidly, he could not fathom. 

“Not so ugly as to spoil a good night out,” Phryne interjected, shutting down the discussion with such politesse, Jack was quickly unsure if it was a censure. Her tone was not cool so much as it was final and her steady gaze on Fred was every bit her usual unflappable self. Jack thought he caught a glimpse again of that specific brand of charm of hers he had seen aboard the Principessa. His curiosity was once again on high alert, for that same falseness he had seen on the ship seemed to return, and he could not make out how he knew it. He didn’t have time to figure in the reason. As though she sensed his discomfort, or perhaps to enhance it, she moved. 

“Mr Ridgeway,” she turned her considerable charms on him, seemingly determined to try something. He looked at her with all the calm query he could muster, her unpredictability as much a threat as his discomfort. He expected a mischievous dominance, but saw instead a genuine question. Her eyes were soft, honestly open as she forced herself to test a theory. “Can I have this dance?” she asked, without design or agenda and with every avenue open for his refusal. He blinked, completely disarmed by the distinct lack of demand in her. The hesitation rested as she simply sat and watched him. Jack contemplated what this sudden shift might mean. Was this her focussed attempt to take his earlier criticisms to heart? The moments seemed to move so quickly from one consideration to the next, he couldn’t exactly make sense of them. 

There was a pause. 

“I’d be delighted,” he said, the words flowing with a sudden bold appreciation that appeared within him without initial explanation, running over his usual professionalism and turning his response to a fire that not even he had anticipated. It happened so swiftly, Phryne’s brows ticked slightly as he stood up and held out his hand for hers. His acquiescence was not mere acquiescence, but an apparent vested interest - an appreciative vested interest - and the reward was undoubtedly unexpected after so many weeks of terseness and running rings around him. She was not accustomed to asking nicely; it was hardly ever more fun than the alternative. 

Naturally, Detective Inspector Jack Robinson turned her notions on their heads. 

She put her hand in his and he lifted her from her seat - quite happy to leave the others behind. Of course, the moment he had been pleased enough with what he viewed as her response to his challenges, he realised that he must now take up the very act he had then protested. Oh God, what had he done? His sigh was visible to Phryne, who was too thrilled with this turn of events not to notice it. Everything that had been elated victory a moment before was now undeniable recalcitrance. He did not have to venture far, either, until a space opened up for them and he could no longer hide behind the pretence of finding one. Damn her. Damn Fred’s uncomfortable forthrightness. Damn ‘The Hopper’. Frankly, damn it all. He turned to Phryne, then, resigned to his fate and perhaps the fact that she won even when he did. He could feel her delight and it irked him. 

As he faced her, his glance up at her was almost a warning, a censure against what could be gloating of a most unattractive kind - but there that warning died. 

The moment snuck up on him with distinct stealth - a realisation as he suddenly felt the softness of her hand in his. All thought of their contest of wills suddenly slipped into the very real sensation of her waiting expectantly for him. Despite the hint of amusement about her, she made no move to control what happened next, the same open invitation resting in her demeanour as it had at the table. Having been left to take charge of the spoils of a possible manipulation, she did nothing but offer back the independence he had asked for. He appreciated then that, as much as he resented being carted about as a sort of accessory, he now stood opposite the most remarkable woman in the room. As though he had forgotten for a moment. A sense of occasion settled on him and he felt a little humbled by it as he experienced the tug that so many others did when the Honourable Phryne Fisher was involved. 

As though the band leader sensed it too, the music slowed and slipped into a tune that was not at all fitted to the club’s name. 

Phryne thought nothing of the shift, adapting as she so often did to her circumstance and settling with an inexplicable familiarity into his hold as he pulled her closer. He had been so busy focussing on their task and his fight for supremacy - to say nothing of the intrigue aboard ship - Jack had not had time to consider that their ‘friendship’ must incapsulate a level of intimacy that was not theirs in actuality, nor that he must adapt to that faux reality as though it were nothing unusual. While they shared a level of closeness, his life was not hers, and while they shared cases, that was really where it must be said to end. That he must display nothing of the strangeness of her hand slipping elegantly onto his shoulder was an unexpected challenge. 

“Breathe, Jack,” she quickly teased. It was enough. He quirked a brow at her, instantly remembering the results of his earlier adversarial approach and inspired to counter her attack with some cleverness of his own. He moved instinctively with the music, his steps were as sure and decisive as his hands were firm. 

Phryne looked up at him immediately, matching his lead with the ease that was expected of her. The look on her face, however, was one of surprised intrigue. She waited for a moment to confirm her suspicions, but soon enough it became apparent that his reluctance to dance had absolutely nothing to do with his ability. He moved with a grace that was as unexpected as his skill in reciting Shakespeare. Categorically impressed, she flatly refused to hide it. 

“Have you been purposefully hiding this talent from me, Jack, or is this just another example of your undercover prowess?” her eyes glistened with so many entendres, Jack could barely count them all.

“You’ll find I’m full of-,” he stopped, hesitating for a second over his word-choice despite his wish to run into the counter; there were many innocuous ones that were wiser decisions with his hand so dangerously on her waist, “surprising talents.” 

That one was, undoubtedly, not amongst them. Phryne’s brows rose with decided amusement. 

Jack’s glance crossed the room in sudden vulnerability - it always sounded more daring in one’s head, more necessary. He waited for her laugh, bold and utterly amused. It never came. That was worse. Far worse. He looked down at her immediately, needing to explain the absence of the expected response. 

It was a fatal mistake. 

She looked up at him without any attempt to hide her interest in that line of thought, a fixed gaze, wrapped in all the usual natures of her curious and quick mind - like every mystery that seemed to fall into her lap, she seemed to be puzzling through the details as she moved along with him, nearer than he was used to. Also absent, however, was her usual predatory intention when teasing him. Her smile was a shadow of its usual self, though present. Her intrigue was burning in her eyes without its usual provocative edge. She wasn’t trying to bait him, which made the query all the more threatening in its genuine interest. 

“Are you flirting with me, Inspector?” she asked, almost too quietly. He wondered how she could possibly summon such innocence alongside the manner in which her fingers so very gently began to toy with the base of his shirt-collar. His frame immediately lost any semblance of ease. 

“I believe it was you that was flirting with me, Miss Fisher,” he responded, though the thickness in his throat was obvious, “amongst other dangers.” He glanced around them briefly, still admonishing her. Her smile slid neatly up the side of one cheek. 

“Really?” she returned, as though she were uncovering a chord of the most delicious gossip. He could not stop his return to the examination of her face, nor could he contain it from slipping to the elegant line of her neck - though the action would later unsettle him. 

“I have it on good authority - ”

“Attenzione! Fermare la musica!” a voice rang out from the door of the club, barking through the gaiety of the evening and halting the band in an instant. Phryne turned in Jacks’ arms to see the distinctly cut features of a man dressed impeccably in an unmistakably black shirt. The voice had come from another, standing rigidly by his side - a lieutenant, Jack guessed. The officer’s eyes cast coolly around the room, noting that the vast majority were expatriates. Silence had descended as all eyes turned to watch him. He said nothing. The sound of his eventual step from the doorway could have echoed in the stiff little room, his boots clacking with the precision of discipline. 

“Good evening, Ladies and Gentleman,” he offered, the slick assurance of his accented English curling Jack’s fingers decidedly around Phryne’s waist, “My greatest apologies for the interruption. I would not sully a night in Genoa for anything in the world! But I must regretfully ask you to take your seats, please, and refrain from leaving the building.” 

Phryne turned back and her eyes lifted upward as though she could sense Jack’s thoughts from the look alone. His jaw was locked in place and her still refused to let her go. He looked down at her, the question an obvious one. 

‘It could be anything,’ her eyes seemed to say.

Slowly but surely, patrons began to take their seats and the lieutenant began requesting papers from those who sat nearby. His superior, however, seemed more interested in another quarry. His steps cut a line through tables and chairs, his second following in his wake and fulfilling his cursory licensing queries as he went. 

His destination was obvious. 

“Mr Merton,” he offered slickly, “I see Genoa still delights.” It was thinly veiled disdain. 

“Undoubtedly, sir,” Merton answered back calmly, “have you instructed it to change?” 

Silence as cool, dark eyes surveyed Vincent and their three companions. Soon enough, interest turned to an abandoned fox fur on the back of an empty seat. The slightest curl of a lip could be perceived by those who watched closely. 

“Who is sitting here?” he asked. 

“A dear friend,” Merton fired back.   
“You make ‘dear friends’ rather quickly, then, Mr Merton?” Eyes turned with the rotund form and sliced across the room to where Phryne and Jack remained standing. Neither moved, though Jack’s grip on her had slipped quite out of the realm of a dance partner. 

“Miss Fisher?” the blackshirt called, allowing the space after to rest as long as he pleased. He, after all, had all the time in the world. Phryne did not miss a beat, standing resolutely in place. A beefy hand came out from behind his back and he gestured at her empty chair, alluding, no doubt, to his earlier invitation to take her seat. She could perceive the slight tightening of Jack’s grip before she stepped out of it and made her way across the room. She could feel the glance of every patron on her. Jack fell in step behind her, his gaze fixed on the man who was suddenly far too interesting. 

“I’m sorry, Signor,” Phryne began, “but I don't know you.” She stopped in front of him, holding out her hand in greeting, “The Honourable Phryne Fisher.” He smiled at her proffered hand. 

“And I am Console Benito Accardo, of the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale,” he answered coolly, taking her hand and drawing it cleanly to his lips. A habit for Italians, Jack noted. Phryne watched him closely. 

“That’s rather a mouthful,” Merton chuckled from behind, a dark look silencing him quickly. 

“How may we help you, Console?” Jack cut in, stepping up behind Phryne. The gaze shifted to take him in. 

“You are Mr Ridgeway, yes? Mr John Ridgeway?”

“I am.”

“How fortuitous,” he offered calmly, “then I have found my quarry and the band may continue its merrymaking.” He lifted his hand in signal and the band struck up, as though on cue. Reluctantly, eyes turned back to their tables, the lack of even subtle glances indicating to Jack just how this town functioned when it came to the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale. The rumours, then, amongst Italian migrants had not been far from the truth. “Please, Miss Fisher, Mr Ridgeway, won’t you sit down?”

“You can take my chair, sir,” Vincent said with deftness that spoke to a maturity beyond his years. 

“Grazi,” the officer conceded, not entirely pleased by a word spoken out of turn. He sat and indicated the two remaining chairs. Phryne and Jack saw no help in avoiding the instruction. “Please,” Accardo began again when they were seated, “do not look quite so stern, Mr Ridgeway. It is only a matter of administration, you understand.” 

“Administration?” Phryne cut across him, wanting to know why it was she who was addressed by name. 

“Yes, Miss,” the officer continued, “you landed this morning, did you not, aboard the ocean liner Principessa?”

“That’s right,” Phryne answered, remaining resolutely still. 

“And you were involved in a little intrigue aboard, I hear,” came the first card in his hand. Jack studied him carefully, trying to work out what this was about. 

“You’ll have to be a little clearer as to your meaning, Console,” Phryne returned, “you see, I have rather a knack for intrigue.” 

He chuckled, “Indeed, it would appear you do.” He paused, undoubtedly for effect and Phryne liked him less by the second, “I was informed by the Master at Arms aboard the Principessa that you were responsible for the resolution of a nasty matter involving a citizen of Italia.”

“Responsible seems a stretch of the matter.”

“Involved, then?” he firmly corrected. 

“Yes, I believe I was.” 

“And were you satisfied by the work of the Master?”

“I’m sorry?” Phryne frowned, trying to make out some sense in the haze of this questioning. 

“Forgive me, Miss,” he added with some conciliation, “I am merely trying to ensure you were satisfied with the performance of our Master at Arms.” 

There was silence as she merely returned his gaze. Tilting her head slightly, she offered nothing but her next query, “Surely the party concerned is the party who has too recently lost her companion. I don’t see why I should be impressed by the standards of investigating.” 

His glance hardened perceptively, “Since you saw fit to involve yourself in the process, I felt compelled to discover why you thought it necessary. Were you unconvinced of the efficiency of Il Duce’s assigned services?” 

Jack’s eyes narrowed at the question, the insinuation beneath it teetering on a knowledge with which he ought to be uncomfortable, and yet entirely in keeping with the paranoia of a newly dictatorial government. They could ill afford poor representation from expatriates abroad and it was entirely possible that this Console was simply ensuring that there was nothing to report. 

“Not at all,” Phryne offered with a sudden light skip in her voice, “merely a case of unbridled curiosity, I assure you.” His stern eyes bored into her, as though that mere act might question the veracity of her answer. Both she and Jack merely stared back at him. 

“Very well,” he offered finally, his face collapsing into a grotesque sort of grin, “then it is my pleasure to welcome you to Genoa!” Jack finally breathed, though he could feel the tail-end of the comment approaching. “And I wish you all the best as you journey on to Roma.”

The message was clear. Console Accardo was informed and he was intent. 

“Thank you, Console,” Jack answered, his jaw remaining set even as the officer stood to nod his leave. It took a few moments after he had finally left the club for the party to settle once more into the potential for an evening. 

“Well!” Merton offered with visible relief, “Welcome to Italy. It’s hardly a visit until you’ve been accosted by the MVSN.”

“Is that common?” Jack asked, barely attempting to shield his usual interrogation technique. 

“It’s about as Italian as Michelangelo’s David,” Merton dismissed, casting a hand through the air, “and could be argued as being nearly as exhibitionist.” He waggled his brows and the tension in the room subsided as the comment drew a hearty laugh from the three women. 

“Come one, Freddie,” Annabel seized the opportunity, “I need another drink.” 

Jack watched as the party returned to its gaiety and he sensed that Phryne was not so nestled in amongst it as she had been before. He watched her as she seemed to consider something closely. 

“Are you all right?” he asked, far from caring particularly for concealment or cleverness. She looked up at him as though surprised, her smile covering over any consideration with its usual self-assured grin. 

“Of course,” she glibly offered back, “weren’t we supposed to be dancing?” 

xXx

The rocking of the carriage made for a steady rhythm enough to lull Phryne into a welcome sleep after the pulsing of the night’s music and the stress of an impromptu interrogation. Her body settled deliciously into the gentle ache of energy expended and fun had. She rested her elbow gently on the window, admiring the open night beyond it and the dark undulating of the hidden terrain of the Italian countryside. Everything had gone smoothly for the rest of the night and the greater the distance between her and the encounter with the Console, the more she was inclined to conclude that it was nothing they need worry overly about. They would be in Rome within the hour, in sight of the Forum and the striking rise of St Peter’s Basilica, so warmly ensconced in the arms of the Seven Hills. She smiled wistfully at the many memories that accompanied such a thought and the night seemed to fade into a haze of deeply comforting pictures; friends laughing gaily in the afternoon sun, the humbling silence of a master’s work, nights lost sibilantly to lovers in rooms of rich Italian silk. 

The food! 

It would all be precisely as she had left it, full of leisure and life. The image of a hard gaze reared up to interrupt her reverie. Her smile faded and her glance shifted from beyond the window to a spot just within it. 

A sharp knock rang out before her considerations could take a turn, however, suddenly drawing her face up and her thoughts back to the dim light of the carriage. It could not have been Dot, who knew she had no need for knocking. 

“Come in,” she called curiously, sitting up very slightly with her feet resting to one side on the seat next to her. The carriage door slid open and Jack stood carefully in the doorway. Phryne’s smile was cheeky and instant, “Jack! You’ll have to forgive me. If I’d been expecting midnight visitors, I’d have been better prepared.”

Jack’s smile was unflappable as ever.

“I thought you were prepared for anything,” he challenged without skipping a beat. She grinned.

“Well, perhaps the illusion of being caught by surprise is the perfect weapon for this sort of tête-a-tête,” she tilted her head very slightly towards the opposite seat, grateful for his presence. He obliged, flicking out the hem of his jacket and settling across from her. “I’m afraid I’m a little short on hospitality tonight,” she offered apologetically, “unless you want to risk waking an Italian steward.” 

“Sounds dangerous,” Jack played along. 

“Devastatingly,” she returned, her tone misting up in that way that still managed to catch him off guard. When he lifted his gaze, he knew precisely the look that would be waiting for him and he was not disappointed as her supreme confidence filled the room with the closest sort of air. He could almost hear the strains of the Jubilee Stomp and the sound of fringe brushing up against him. His breath held ever so slightly as he kept her gaze in the dark and allowed the moment to linger. 

“Well, it’s lucky then that I did not come in search of hard liquor,” he said, his voice far too gathered and well-behaved to be using words like ‘liquor’, however cute the hint of an impish smile. It was almost as preposterous as his using a term like ‘giggle water’. Phryne’s brows reached for the intimate suggestion he had unwittingly offered up. 

“Then what, precisely, did you come in search of?” it was puffery to the last, a usual brand of opportunistic humour. 

“You,” came the response that she had certainly not expected. It was weighty and firm - in that polite way he had of demanding attention. It deflated the lightness of her play within an instant and Phryne noted with due interest the manner in which their styles of command faced each other. There was nothing about her confidence that could be considered ‘quiet’, she dominated with clear and honest intent. Jack’s patient statement, however, in no way lacked her kind of presence. 

“I’m intrigued,” she settled, offering him the floor without petulance or the ribbing to which he was so obviously open. Jack nodded all but imperceptibly at her acquiescence. It had been a bold and ambiguous statement, true in so many ways. In a sense he was after her, if not quite in terms of hot pursuit. First and foremost, he was seeking her out on instinct after their unhappy encounter - though he was trying earnestly to convince himself that it had been a matter of the course, as Merton had suggested. The rest of the evening had been full of laughter and, dare he admit it, fun, and he of all should know that undue fear could be just as devastating to a delicate mission as poor planning. He would keep his eyes open, but as Phryne had noted in the hotel foyer, there was nothing so suspicious as suspicion. 

So, instead, he sought out the secondary objective that offered itself as an excuse. He wanted to carve carefully away at the sides of Miss Fisher that were now so intriguingly on display as they were forced into each other’s company more expressly. He had noticed it all the more in Genoa, observing as closely as he could allow whilst still focussed on the mission at hand and the concern of finally being on Italian soil. As she had cast herself about the conversation of the deviantly bohemian society of the club, and moved in perfect step with his dance only to thoroughly upset it when the tempo had risen, he had given a fuller understanding to his suspicions about her. There were shades to the Honourable Phryne Fisher, shifting colours that appeared and disappeared on facing new stimuli. It sounded ridiculous, now that he thought of it so distinctly. 

Of course there were. She was human, was she not? 

As much as it pained him to admit, however, he had never truly considered it. To him, she had always been Miss Fisher, a sort of mythical concept that awed and tormented all with whom she came into contact; a singular figure, no matter how colossal. He had pieced together her brightness and darkness until they became inseparable. He had never wondered about the fact that they might be intentional until he had seen the decision made aboard the Principessa. 

He wanted to know about the woman on the stairs. 

He wanted to know if the distinction was as deliberate as he had perceived, and, perhaps most pertinently, he wanted to know if the woman on the stairs shared anything in common with the woman on a chaise longue on the Esplanade at St Kilda. He breathed in deeply, in that way he had of steeling himself, despite the small smile that appeared all too wickedly on his face. 

“I’d better get on with it then; leaving the Honourable Phryne Fisher intrigued might be more dangerous than waking an Italian steward,” the statement lay in distinct contrast to the lackadaisical manner in which he reclined, folding an ankle to his knee and resting an arm across the back of his seat. Even in her tiredness, Phryne’s eyes shimmered. She had expected more tension after the questioning. 

“You know I’ll have it out of you before we reach Rome,” she threatened with such invitation Jack felt his mouth go a little dry. 

“I’ve no doubt of it,” he stated simply, “there’ll be no need for interrogations here, however.” 

“Oh,” her voice dropped into what could have been genuine disappointment and Jack temporarily reconsidered his answer before he realised the realm that would require slipping into. He retreated from that line of inquiry before it got him into some serious trouble. 

He stalled. 

He had been so sure of his intent in this discussion, it had not struck him to think of a strategy for addressing it in amongst the busy thoughts of the evening. He remembered another moment in the grand salon that had seen the appearance of the face he wanted to understand. 

“I was impressed with the way Miss Williams handled her own threatening steward,” he put out a feeler. Miss Fisher frowned slightly, unsure where he was going with this. She seemed to address the catalogue of moments from the day before taking his meaning. 

“I’ve never seen a man so pleasantly told off in all my life,” she conceded with a little mirth, not saying anything further for care that she not distract him from revealing himself. Pause returned. 

“It seems not even guns in alleyways can disturb her fortitude,” he tested then, watching her face intently for the evidence he wanted. Phryne looked back at him, puzzled. Her own mind must be working just as fiercely as his, since she never missed a moment and he shifted in his seat as he realised that playing games with her might not be the wisest endeavour he’d set out on. She tilted her head and seemed to consider something for a moment. Finally, she looked down at the floor and his heart skipped a little at what was possibly success. 

“No thanks to me,” the words fell from her mouth and seem to die on the floor. Jack blinked. 

The meaning dawned on him in pieces, her conclusion hitting him harder than a look ever could. If he had taken her meaning correctly, it was a bold admission - an acceptance of a fault that she had not yet claimed, even if she had asked forgiveness to keep the peace on a moonlit evening on deck. He dared not assume, and probed a little further, “We were well in time to prevent anything further taking place.” It was genuine reassurance, finding itself rather ironically unsettled in the depth of what sounded uncannily like remorse. 

Phryne looked directly up at him, “She would not be here at all, if I had not asked her.” 

It was the completion of a thought that had begun with an earlier realisation at her bath-side. Phryne had noted her companion’s need to assure her of the place she held in the party, to prove her reliability in the endeavour, and the conclusion had been singularly damning. It was obvious that she had not wished to disappoint and Phryne knew that such a drive meant that whatever desire Dot possessed to follow her along to Rome had been eclipsed by her belief in an expectation. Miss Fisher had perceived, perhaps for the first time, the real pressure she had put on the young woman. 

Jack’s argument had rung clear then. She answered it now. 

“She thanked me for bringing her along,” she admitted, understanding that that too had been a reassurance, a kind of post-choice consent to her decision. “She all but acquitted me of the trouble of that afternoon at the bazaar,” she said as though the thought was horrid. 

Jack sat resolute, listening intently. How startling she could be when a realisation came upon her. He had no immediate response, finding that his digging was revealing rather more than he had anticipated. She retreated then, quietening and looking out over the changing terrain once more. Eager to stop her from shutting herself away from him, he spoke quickly. 

“Then her decisions are once more her own,” he said. Phryne turned back to him, catching his gaze and holding it as something passed between them. It was ever a relief for them to return to the same page. She was thoroughly glad of it and acknowledged to herself that a puzzle piece within her, which had been jarringly out of place for the last month, slipping comfortingly back into it. It brought a warmth of resolution and she would have raised her glass, had she had one. Just as she had come to rely on Dot, Jack had come to occupy his own space in her world as well. It was a space that lacked serious definition, since she was not one who strove to push clear demarkations where they refused to do so of their own accord - she only knew that she didn’t care for a picture without him in it. 

Whether taken in Rome or not. 

He wanted then to discuss what had happened, to worry over it like he ought to. He consciously held himself back. There would be time for that, and they could consider it in daylight. Tomorrow was another day and the beginning of the adventure in earnest. There would be time. 

“I’d better leave you to it,” he said, his voice suppressing something she could not quite make out. Phryne rapidly went over the conversation, trying to determine whether she had got to the bottom of his curious quest. “We’ll be arriving in no time. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of any preparation for a dramatic entrance,” he stood, straightening out his jacket. She scoffed lightly, trying to make sense of this departure, which was as sudden as his entrance.

“I didn’t realise my current style of dress was so - deficient,” she smiled, mimicking his own self-conscious concern in a moment at her dining-room table. Her tease was obvious. He huffed a little laugh, continuing towards the door unruffled.

“Not at all!” he parroted back, turning to offer her a look that was pure delighted vengeance, “It’s just a matter of Italian taste.” She laughed outright at the return of her own words, nodding to concede his victory on this occasion and waving him towards his exit. He followed her gestured instruction with the first look of contentment she’d seen about him in weeks and drew back the door to the compartment.

“Jack?” she pulled him around by the slightest shift in her voice. His brows raised in question as he turned to look at her, somewhat small in her curled up position on the seat. “Are you glad you came?” Her eyes were all sincerity, as though she would turn the train around herself if need be. Whatever peace-keeping forgiveness she had asked of him before, her true penitence seemed to blossom now in the sombre tone of her voice. He was grateful, grateful that she had thought of it and grateful that she had come to this place herself.

“Yes,” he answered after a moment of consideration, his sincerest smile descending, “always.” 

For the first time, it did not feel like a concession.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There it is! Hope you liked it. If you don’t mind, I’m particularly keen for a few comments on length. I’ve noticed that each chapter is quite long… Thoughts on this? Is it too much? Could do with condensing? Or is the pace all right? I’d appreciate any feedback you might have.


	5. A Glorious Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, the team set foot in Rome! The marks of the brewing darkness, however, are hard to miss, and the shadow is keenly felt by all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! It has been far too long and a wave of tough life-occurences have pushed me far from the things I love, leaving Phryne and Jack on the brink of what I promised. I pray you’ll forgive me as we finally dive headlong into the majesty of Rome!
> 
> Another epic instalment, but I have heard the cry for shorter chapters, and as the action picks up, I may even be able to heed that call. ;)

Roma!

The air itself seemed alive, bright and rich with the morning sun. Phryne had often heard Paris referred to as the City of Light, it’s pink hue something one could not quite describe to an outsider without their having seen it. Rome, however, possessed an equally charming quality, bathed also in the languid atmosphere that could belong to the Italians alone. The station was a hive of activity, yes, but it was that softened sort that drifted as though dreaming rather than charging through a stressful morning. Italians were never busy and though the buzz was certainly overwhelming in amongst the passionate exclamations of reunion between family members, Jack felt rather as though everyone was in the midst of a holiday. Tobacco smoke could be smelled all across the platform, sweet and heady with the fruity and floral scents of decadent Europe, drifting from cafes that seemed to hold more people than the train. Music filled the air and though Jack wondered if this were some impressive extension on the wireless, he soon realised that a jazz quintet played boisterously from a little piazza beneath the stations main staircase.

Dot seemed thoroughly overwhelmed as she clutched Phryne’s valise and gaped wide-eyed at the spectacle, her eyes following every which way they could.

“Look at the women, Miss Fisher!” she gushed in urgent whisper, “Have you ever seen anything so elegant?”

“Why yes, Dot,” she grinned, “the first time.” She teased her, but Phryne was full of gaiety at finally landing her feet back on the ancient stones of this mighty city and there was nothing she enjoyed more than drinking deep of her companion’s first taste of it. There was nothing so fine as introducing another to wonders she had long enjoyed. “I’ll have to take you to the Campo de’ Fiori, it’s Rome’s oldest market. You cannot conceive of the treasures to be found there,” it seemed like the most debaucherous promise in the world and Dot’s face flushed as she grinned in absolute enthralment.

“Oh,” she hushed, “just think of the fabrics.”

“I know,” Phryne played tantalisingly along, “just don’t tell Madame Fleurie. She hates Italian design.” Dot laughed in conspiracy, happy to keep her mistress’s secrets and feeling as though she might faint for the sheer overwhelming wonder of being here.

While it might also have passed Phryne’s care, if not her notice, it did not pass Dot’s sensibilities that this was also God’s own city, the city of the Apostles Peter and Paul. It humbled her in amongst her excitement and she thought for a wild minute, that she could not love anyone so much as she loved Miss Fisher for bringing her there.

In a similar way and quite contrary to the Lady Detective’s frivolous joy, Jack found himself moved by the sheer circumstance of it all. If Dot was compelled by the thought of the Early Church, then Jack was awed by the very stones that had borne the likes of Julius Caesar and the Empire that had birthed it. He was struck with the memory of a centurion’s uniform at a party. Marc Antony - at play then - was now here amongst the very pillars of his brethren. It was almost too much to consider - rather as he had felt in Egypt the first time during the war, when he’d looked up at the Pyramids and thought of Cleopatra. He sought Phryne out on instinct, telling himself it had everything to do with that costume party and nothing at all with the fact that she was the closest thing he could imagine to the Nile Queen. She didn’t catch his eye, caught up with Dot and grinning in the soft gold and white stripe of her chiffon blouse. Her eyes were almost wild with joy.

“It’s quite something, isn’t it?” Mr Butler suddenly intoned, catching Jack in instant protection of his thoughts. When the Inspector turned, however, he noted that the butler’s gaze was kept for the horizon and the cityscape that laid itself out before them.

“It’s a staggering sight, certainly,” Jack agreed.

“To think I was set on a quiet retirement,” came the quick response, filled with amazement and contentment all at once. Jack couldn’t help the chuckle that had to rush ahead when the words ‘quiet’ were used in any vague proximity to Miss Fisher.

“I imagine you’ve had a jolly good time of trying to make that work,” he teased. Mr Butler turned and offered him an enigmatic gaze.

“Oh no. It wasn’t a battle. I surrendered immediately,” he said, his tone sounding more like advice than history.

There was a pause as Jack considered it, trying to make sense of the implication that seemed to be making itself known.

“That sounds like it could land you in trouble,” he warned, a cloud flickering over his features in amongst the gaiety.

“Well,” Mr Butler did not linger, “so far it’s landed me in Rome.”

The Inspector could dwell on that reality however he wished.

They made their way through the city with the same juxtaposition of languishing energy Jack had earlier noted. Despite how long it seemed to take for anything truly to be done around the place, everything had a measurable sort of theatricality about it. Not the least of this parade was the show waiting to be had at the station’s entrance. For the first time, Phryne looked back at him - and it was not charm that rested in her gaze. He had matched the sudden concern instantaneously. He had seen it too.

A black shirt.

Here one, there another, four more in perfect formation, marching down the street in perfect contrast to the frivolity around them. Their presence was sharp, distinct and unsettling - no doubt, just as it was designed to be. As was her wont, Phryne seemed to think the best way to do a disservice to what displeased her, was to behave in the manner directly opposed to that which was expected of her. She spoke a little louder, gestured a little more wildly and fell directly in step with the most vibrant of her street-side companions.

Jack was not so swiftly disposed towards rebellion.

As they finally solicited the services of a car, he was already tired out by the sheer movement of the place and he forced himself to press his worries to the back of his mind. He sat in silence then, reflecting on his earlier conversation with Mr Butler in amongst Phryne’s continuing education of young Dot through the small back window as they drove. He smiled a little. They seemed more like contemporaries than employer and employee - though he supposed Phryne had a knack with making everyone feel that way. He had observed it now for what it was, and yet the scintillating mystery of it still plagued him; which was real and which the facade? He had seen charm enough to know it on her features, and yet it had begun to fill his mind and he worried that it might become a full time study, distracting him from the real and very present danger. Still he watched them together as aqueducts and monuments alike passed by them just outside the window.

Mr Butler raised the wager that Dot could not grow any more amazed by the time they reached the open marvels of the city, but he was forced to admit his folly when they rounded the avenue in full view of the Colosseum, standing majestically against a backdrop of vibrant blue sky. It emerged, like the symbol it was and none dared to speak over the little gasp that escaped the young lady’s maid. The driver seemed to note her enthusiasm, or else he was keenly in tune with tourists, for he pulled the motor to a gentle pace so that the impressive edifice could be admired. Even Phryne kept as close to a hallowed silence as she could manage - for a woman who allowed little to be sacrosanct without proper reasoning behind it, it was a keen gesture.

“I’d almost forgotten,” the Lady Detective offered lightly, a haze of awe dangerously close to her tone. Jack heeded it as he looked on, his own marked feelings kept dutifully beneath the brim of his hat. This mark of the might of another Empire was almost overwhelming in reality, and the feeling of circumstance he had encountered at the stationed solidified into a serious impression.

“A marvel,” Mr Butler admitted, admiring the glorious reach of stone and the statuary that still marched on through the ages.

“It’s going to be a brilliantly pleasant trip,” Phryne delighted, her memories now taking pride of place in her sights, misting over her thoughts with the promises of gaiety she had encountered on the train. It had been far too long. It seemed but a pleasant fiction to think of encountering it again - and yet here stood the marks of a thousand years since passed. She looked across at Jack, as though this moment were explanation of everything that had driven her to press her way - on him and all of them - as though to prove that every madness of hers had method, and purpose. He returned the look, remembered her as she had been on the train and everything that had passed between them when the moon had been up instead of the sun. He felt more than initiated the smile that acknowledged her point on this one. It faded almost as quickly as it settled, however, as he noticed a sudden shift of her eyes, and the descent of her brow that had grown familiar in the face of dealing with Murdoch Foyle.

He turned back to the window.

Like a gash across the canvas, another six pairs of shining black boots pelted the ground, cutting off a pair of travelling lovers from their view of the city.

It jarred. With everything, it jarred.

“Provided that we keep our heads,” he finally intoned, weighing in far too late with only this somber reflection. Phryne seemed to bristle at his acknowledgement of the scar that wanted to impress itself on a place so full of her former happiness. Jack simply held his gaze in place as the march was kept in perfect rhythm, a sinister parallel to the crumbling form of yesterday’s Empire. Much as she had felt at the club in Genoa, the air constricted around Phryne and her knowledge that she was responsible for every single head in this cab presumed upon her. There was silence then, an uncomfortable sort of calm as they drove on to the apartments of Mr Agostini. It was a silence bred of an inability to be between two things - for Phryne would not be intimidated and Jack would not be flippant.

The motor, then, could not have chosen a more appropriate time to call a stop outside the impressive facade of a set of family apartments, a stone’s throw from the Piazza di Trevi and top to toe the genteel Baroque design that Phryne had fallen in love with once before. The fashionable updates, vines along the balconies, colour on the shutters, marked its skipping into the new era, but beneath those flairs stood the formidable and reliable marks of Italian stubbornness that made her believe that no matter Il Duce’s demands, the heart of Rome would remain as ever it was.

If Jack had been in doubt as to Mr Agostini’s means before seeing the home he had left behind, the two stories of comfortable elegance were enough to assure him. The Agostini’s were a family of influence, and it was a matter of clear urgency that would have forced the young man from his homeland. Now, when tenacious minds are at work, it is often their way that whatever they see fastens itself to the bulwark of already established thoughts. While Phryne’s security seemed to settle at the sight of the house, it was predictability itself that set Jack’s all the more on their edge.

He said nothing as they disembarked and Dot stood blinking at the door step, “Are you sure this is it, Miss? I can’t imagine trading in this place for anything, let alone to stop at a dockside in Melbourne.”

Phryne chuckled, “An intriguing sentiment, Dot, especially coming from one who just a short while ago wouldn’t let her foot leave a dockside in Melbourne.”

The chatter continued as Phryne’s courts clicked gaily up stone steps and to an arched doorway, which opened almost as swiftly as she arrived at it. While the ease with which the moment flowed seemed rather farcical to Jack, Phryne moved into the hallway as though she expected it and greeted the doorman with a bright smile. “How prompt! You must be have been expecting us…” she rattled off immediately in charming Italian.

Her smile faltered at the reply.

“Buongiorno,” the tone of voice issuing from what she could only conclude was the butler Rudolpho had mentioned, was so tinged, so decidedly biting, it was odious. It suited his appearance to a tee, tall and almost skeletal as he was, his eyes somewhat sunken and more black than the warm brown she usually associated with Italians from the South. What he attempted to pass off as a smile looked more a sneer as he responded, switching from Italian to English in a way that was a certain slight on Phryne’s accent, “Since yesterday, Signora.”

Her brows rose. “Signorina,” she offered just as pointedly,

He nodded curtly at the correction, “I am Mr Vincenzi, the butler and Mr Agostini’s personal secretary when he is in Rome. Mr Agostini did not advise me of your extended stay in Genoa.”

There was a flaring pause.

“Well, we shall be sure to keep a better handle on any future delays,” she said, the tick of surprise turning to irritation in earnest, “especially when they are at the hands of local police.” It had taken precisely two seconds for the situation to escalate, and Jack cleared his throat as he approached. He could feel the heat of her gaze as she turned her ire on the tactic - silencing her was not wise in such moments. He pleaded with her with a glance. She breathed. “This is Mr Ridgeway, he is travelling with me from Melbourne and is also a guest of Mr Agostini,” she pressed on, “I trust that news at least has reached you?”

Jack’s eyes blinked shut for a moment at further antagonism.

“Buongiorno,” he tried. Mr Vincenzi appeared unimpressed.

“I have prepared a separate suite for Mr Ridgeway,” he stated crisply, turning to look at Phryne as though to suggest she might be put out by the idea. She took his meaning all too well.

“Then we shall be perfectly comfortable,” she added as ambiguously as she could manage. By this time Dot and Mr Butler had made their way in through the door, carrying personal items as fitting both station and cover, and Dot hovered demurely at the feeling of tension in the air.

“I will show you to your apartments, and around the house,” he gave a curt bow and turned towards the interior, “Luncheon will be served promptly at eleven in the second dining room.”

Phryne turned to Jack behind the man’s back, her expression detailing exactly how late she would be for that appointment.

She was estopped from insinuating anything further, however, as the looming presence of the butler was upon them again, expectant as ever. He had reached a hall table, and a pristine silver tray, which bore on it a crisp envelope, addressed by a hand that Phryne recognised instantly, “A note for you, Signorina.” He leant on the last.

Phryne reached for the note without a word, brows still pert enough to resist any action the man seemed to take, even as he turned away from her. Despite this outward façade, however, her heart had skipped to see the intricate curls that wound their way around the multitude of ’S’s in her name. She could not prevent her smile as she opened up the envelope to find inside exactly what she had hoped.

“What is it?” asked Jack.

“Francesca,” she beamed.

“What?” he seemed alarmed by the introduction of new and unexpected information.

“Francesca,” she offered with a touch of her earlier irritation.

“Of course, Francesca,” he returned sardonically, “and what has she to say?”

“She’s invited us for afternoon refreshments at her townhouse on the piazza,” her eyes continued to scan the note as her feet followed after Mr Vincenzi, who had begun his commentary on the house and its contents, and seemed greatly put out when her speech interrupted it. He stopped and eyed her. She lowered the note with an innocent smile. He continued. Jack looked at Phryne.

“I’m not sure who’s more welcoming,” Phryne bit out lowly behind increasingly forced teeth, “the butler or the territorial militia.”

xXx

The tour was as impressive as the exterior of the house, and Dot was still adjusting to the sheer number of times she had heard the word “original” attached to the end of an artist’s name while admiring the numerous works that seemed to litter the walls or little pedestals placed just so. If Phryne had shown Dot the meaning of fashionable elegance, Mr Agostini’s apartments flaunted every aspect of Italian history and, dare she say it, decadence - from art, to rugs, to the breathtaking gilt bannisters that curled their way up to the bedrooms upstairs. Even the servants’ quarters were more lavish than any she’d encountered in Australia, and she couldn’t help but admire that - whatever Phryne’s proclivities for quality - there was an air of the unnecessary about the decor of Mr Agonstini’s taste. Once again, she found herself admiring Miss Fisher’s sensibility in amongst her undoubted passions.

Whatever her laxity with the rules, Phryne had always been far from irresponsible when it came to her purse strings.

As Dot rounded a corner in the servant’s hall, an evening dress in her hands for pressing, she felt out of place. Even here, the walls spoke of having been there an age before she. She tried to keep her head down and get on with the business to which she had been tasked. It was the least she could do, since it appeared they would be denied the sanctuary of home here - something Dot had almost assumed they would find in a place set aside for the party. With Mr Vincenzi presiding, however, the whole experience was cast in a shadow and it seemed likely to remain over them as he watched them far too closely for Dot’s ease. She would hardly go so far as to call him the enemy after only one meeting - indeed she was familiar with stern household staff - but his vulturous appearance did little to calm her on that front.

The appearance of Mr Butler, then, was comforting, and she smiled at him as much to relieve her own tension as in greeting. “A little gloomy down here, isn’t it?” she ventured.

“We’ll soon have the shutters open and that beautiful Italian light streaming in,” he reassured.

“Yes, but mind we’re to - “ she lifted a hand from beneath Phryne’s gown, to reveal a piece of paper already worn with the number of times she had read the house rules it contained, “‘… avoid the opening of rooms not in use in Mr Agostini’s absence.’”

Mr Butler’s frown illustrated just exactly what he thought of that proposition, “It’s early yet, the man will have to calm his hand at some point.” Even as he said it, he was unconvinced. For all he tried to offer young Dorothy the support she needed, he too was unsettled by the appearance of so unhappy a spectre in what would serve as their headquarters of sorts. “We’ve just got to keep ourselves about ourselves until then,” he offered.

Dot seemed uncertain, her brows knitting neatly in consternation. “But,” she began, feeling at once as though the walls themselves had ears. She hesitated. Finally, cowed by the instinct, she lowered her voice well and truly, “it seems an unhappy turn, in light of everything.”

Mr Butler heard her point clearly.

“I guarantee both Miss Fisher and her Inspector have held their own under much greater pressures than these,” he offered.

“It’s hardly the same th-,” she paled, mouse-like, “at least we were on home soil then.”

“Yes, but they’re not alone this time either,” Mr Butler smiled, “are they?”

A pause as Dot considered that.

“No,” she finally allowed herself to feel warmed by the suggestion, feeding his optimism with her satisfaction at once again being able to assist her lady detective. After a moment, however, her eyes glanced nervously over the page in her hand, “Well, at least they’ll be out of the house this afternoon. That’ll give us some time to settle in.”

“Yes,” Mr Butler’s voice showed the first sign of grey. Dot looked up at him once more.

“There’s no need to worry,” she tried, “she’s a dear friend of Miss Fisher’s. There’s no room for trouble there.”

“Just for more of the same weary argument,” Mr Butler let slip. He breathed in at once, wishing he hadn’t shared it with the impressionable young woman. It was too late, and she was too keen to let it pass.

“Do suppose he’ll be angry?” she asked, “Again?”

“I suppose he’ll be precisely as he always is,” Mr Butler returned, giving her no more insight than that, “All I know is that, whatever his mood, we need them decidedly on the same team.”

Dot nodded, his earlier reassurances in her distress making her eager to allay his own concerns now, “I wouldn’t worry, Mr Butler. I’ve never known Miss Fisher to drop the ball on anything, let alone something… or someone so important. She’s not likely to let us, any of us, down now.”

He held his tongue, then, allowing for her charity on the matter, though it was not a lack of faith in Miss Fisher’s steadfastness that pushed his worry.

If only this matter were in her control.

“No,” he answered after a moment, bending slightly to Dot’s way on this, “right you are.”

“Good,” she smiled again, the ease beginning to sit a little in her gut as she felt courage answered, “I’d best see to it that I get this gown sorted out for this evening.”

He agreed with a gentle gesture around him and to the scullery, as she made her way passed and left him in the dimly-lit hall. He took a moment to quietly examine the prospects for the future, until a mutter could not help itself.

“Right you are.”

xXx

“I’m surprised we made it out of there alive,” Phryne quipped as they ascended yet another set of impressive stairs leading to the home of her dear friend, “Or at least in one piece. I felt sure he was about to take a measuring stick to my hemline.”

Jack couldn’t help his smile as she rested her arm on his, “Well, you are getting dangerously close to showing rather a lot of knee.” It was subtle, his wit once again hidden behind his focussed and gathered demeanour.

“God forbid,” Phryne answered him with that familiar glow of intended scandal about her eyes.

“Or, at least, Mr Vincenzi,” Jack kept his eyes for the front door. It was good, for it also covered his resistance in asking the next question, charged as it was, “So, what else should I know about this friend of yours?”

Phryne felt the censure in his words, and she felt the immediate pull to defend herself. She honestly had not expected the invitation, let alone for this very afternoon - without any time to warn him.

“I’m surprised it took you this long to ask,” she answered, switching as she so often seemed to from opportunistic flirtation onto the matter at hand with a softer tone, “and nothing you won’t soon learn in her company. I promise, nothing untoward or in the slightest surprising! We were well-acquainted during my time on the Continent. Her late husband was a purveyor of some very fine wine coming out of Florence. Since his death, she’s left the estate to spend the Autumn in Rome with the children. She was the perfect remedy for the soul after…” Phryne hesitated, feeling the story running away from her, unravelling in this familiar place of healing.

“After -?” Jack pressed, a quirked brow at her self-censorship.

“… Paris,” she offered vaguely.

Jack frowned and assumed she was speaking of the war. He nodded quietly in his mistaken conclusion. Phryne did not correct him. The house seemed to see to it that she did not have to, as the front door appeared before them. He held his tongue, then, and allowed the trust he had all but promised her on the train take a hold.

“No surprises?” he offered like an olive branch.

She met his gaze, an appreciative warmth appearing at the return of the deference she had employed at the club in Genoa, “No surprises.”

Compromise, perhaps, was possible.

As she turned to apply a silk glove to the knocker of the front door, Jack caught the quickest appearance of a smile he’d ever perceived - it was instant, burning with the question he had yet to answer about the fleeting moments that moved like whisps across her face.

“Sì, Signora?” came a familiar response from behind the ornate door, though delivered with far less intent than Jack had heard it this morning.

“Signora Francesca Agostini,” Phryne enquired, having no drive in this instance to correct the man about her title, “we’re expected.” Jack blinked as the butler gave a curt nod and bade them enter.

“Agostini?” came the rushed question when they were ushered through the door, relieved of their coats, and pressed forward to be announced.

“Her late husband was also the brother of our kind benefactor,” she offered almost too quickly.

“You failed to mention that,” Jack shot back, tight.

“You failed to ask,” Phryne argued with a smile, full perhaps of one surprise.

“Phryne, darling! I thought you would never come!” a lilting, accented voice all but erupted from the other room, its delight genuine and coloured with every shade of affection that could possibly touch it. Phryne turned at once towards it and that smile that had been all too artificial lifted into a rich and generous return.

It was a jolt of adrenaline, a hint, a clue in the increasingly Grand Mystery of her countenance, and it was again so quick that Jack had to be certain he hadn’t imagined it. He hesitated, tending to the myriad of possibilities that that shift in her demeanour could conclude, delaying his encounter with the mysterious Signora Agostini.

“Francesca, look at you! If it weren’t for the miraculous properties of Rome, I’d be asking you your secret. You look absolutely radiant!” Phryne gushed in return, stopping not a moment before throwing her arms around her friend. Jack finally turned, bearing witness to their embrace and catching the hint of obsidian waves, worn long, after a more dated European fashion. As the woman pulled back, he felt his hands clutch his hat on pure instinct.

Hers was an otherworldly beauty, carried in the wisdom of her dark eyes and the olive caresses of her skin, jovially lined with a few more years than Phryne’s. She was startling, draped in rich fabric, though very simply cut - the kind of sophistication that belied ostentation in security of good taste. She smiled at Jack, a welcome so genuine as to envelope the whole room as she turned back to Phryne, “A visit and a gift? You have been generous.”

Jack frowned a moment before he felt a flash strike from top to toe at the insinuation.

Phryne laughed. “Try not to frighten him,” she warned, “he’s a fawn I’m taking wondering in the woods.” She looked back over her shoulder, her gaze mischievous as ever he’d seen it. He tried to object, but his mouth was dry.

“Just like you a short moon ago,” Francesca smiled, “how long has it been since we wondered together? Don’t tell me! I can’t bare to count the years as they have passed. Now, does this little fawn have a name, or shall I merely call him Cerbiatto? Piccolo Cerbiatto!” She approached with the ease of a cat, graceful as soft pads touching the tiled floors. Jack stood rooted to the spot.

“Piccolo Gianni, if you must,” Phryne watched with sudden upturned interest at the way the other woman took him in, “my dear friend, Jack Ridgeway, a grossly undereducated stray from the Distant Shore.”

Jack had stopped, his jaw stiffening at the statement of a name a little more familiar to him than he would ever admit. He pulled himself towards following her story, being fed as it was, instead of lingering too heavily on another raven-haired Italian. He was surprised that Phryne could lie to her, but in agreement all the same. The fewer people who knew about this, the better, and the easier it became for them to talk as though it were true, the less likely it would be that they would fail.

“Buongiorno, Signorina Agostini. Thank you for inviting us so graciously into your home,” he answered back, a slight bow of his head in greeting.

“Not at all,” she dismissed the thanks as unnecessary, “I could not have the delightful Honourable Miss Phryne Fisher in Rome and not in my parlour.” She grinned, conspiratorial, “Though, of course, I knew her before she was quite so delightful, and certainly when she was a great deal more honourable. No?”

Phryne laughed, warm and unperturbed, “Mr Ridgeway has never known me to be anything less than…”

“Less than what, honourable?” Francesca teased.

“Delightful,” Phryne once again cast a humoured glance over at Jack, though it read a little more beleaguered now.

He merely laughed, his shyness befitting Mr Ridgeway to some extent, but entirely too much Inspector Robinson for his liking. “Well, she ought to have come across that way, or I could not have left Melbourne for her company,” he tried, surprising himself at the remark. It was far from gruff, but held the sort of distanced nuance of the privileged.

Phryne hated it and admired him for it at once.

Francesca’s eyes skipped amusedly to her friend, “Well, we shall be sure to watch ourselves, Sir, for I should hate your report of my beloved Rome to be anything short of riveting. Now come! Phryne, I have the grandest of surprises for you.”

Phryne’s smile was interrupted at that tidbit, her tactic of springing information on people sitting awkwardly with her when she was on the receiving end - she really had only meant for there to be one surprise. She immediately went after the bait before her, “You’ll steal my thunder if you’re not careful - I was ready to be smug with my offering for at least an evening or two.”

Francesca was already moving through the hallways, her smile mirroring one Jack was certain he’d seen on the Esplanade on the odd occasion. “And what sort of model would I be if I failed to beat you to the punch?” she began, holding onto it only for the briefest moment, “But let me be honest. I fear the surprise is less my idea than it was his…”

As they brushed passed doorways leading them to a more intimate parlour, Jack felt his gut constrict instantly, and the slipping of a shadow across Phryne’s brows indicated that she felt similarly. “What do you mean - ?”

Francesca had stopped, her back to the doors, and a smile deep-set into her cheeks, “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

And just like that, the world had changed, and Phryne’s demeanour stiffened just as swiftly as Jack could feel his own doing. The doors to the drawing room swung open, and standing at his leisure with an afternoon refreshment, was a man of singular stature, his suit tailored almost as neatly as his coiffure, and his eyes so green as to stop every other marvel of Rome in its puffery. A huff escaped Phryne’s lips as what she had suspected was revealed, and her surprise was forced in an instant to take on a tenor of far fewer layers than presented themselves.

“Marco,” she responded with all the breathlessness of surprise, the single word touched at the corners with the sentiment of an acquaintance long-since ended. Either Phryne had once significantly underplayed her fluency in thespian, or the play of affection in her voice was something Jack had not even begun to anticipate in their little charade. Before the matter could be much further analysed, however, she all but rushed for the man, her stride breaking into an embrace as his own laugh bubbled over into exclamations of playful Italian behind a smile that seemed to be cut from the same marble as Michelangelo’s David, imbued with a honeyed welcoming that marked the second such greeting they had received since their arrival on the hostile continent. Phryne’s answered it without the curled flirtation with which it had greeted other Italians, seemingly just as jovial as he.

Her smile was bright.

Jack ought to have been delighted at the turn, in some sense, the ease of their connection to the man they were seeking out proving the first simplified action of the mission, and the nature of his previous relationship with Phryne clearly simplifying their task of bringing him into their acquaintance. As it was, however, the brightness of the triumph slipped from Jack’s fingertips like lead as he watched the reunion. He stood at the door, and made no move, despite what his manners and his cover might be telling him. This wasn’t at all the flirtation he had perceived in other seductive moments, not the frivolous lack of care that marked a string of other lovers. Jack swallowed, unable to pin down the sudden discomfort in his gut.

He was not alone in perceiving it.

“I am sorry, Piccolo Cerbiatto,” came a quiet voice, not at all the carefree tease of an earlier mistress, and entirely unwelcome in the vulnerable moment. He turned to look at Francesca, suddenly on his guard at having been seen without his notice. Her eyes were quizzical but sympathetic, “I did not know.“

Jack blinked, unsure what it was she meant to convey, but defensive about it nonetheless.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he told her plainly. She stopped, her refusal to retreat feeling rather like a solid stone wall up against which he found himself. They stood locked for a moment, at an impasse. She lowered her gaze slowly, generously.

“I should introduce you,” she suggested instead.

“Thank you,” was all he offered in response.

As they approached, green eyes slid directly over to him with a sharpness that belied importance, and Jack felt that keenness of knowing about the man. He had planned for this, then, brought himself to them with intent, facilitation.

“And this is Piccolo Gianni Ridgeway,” Francesca cut in, Jack immediately hating the condescension of the term which had been endearing a moment before. The diminutive did not go unnoticed to Marco.

“Though, I think he prefers Jack,” he said, “after the English fashion.” Jack nodded as the Italian came forward, extending his hand with a confidence that, in shaking it, assured Jack that their mission was gaining another able body, rather than any burden. It was a good thing, too. “It does my heart good to know dear Phryne is not travelling the Continent on her own,” Marco turned to look at her, the tease in his tone only apparent in the slight dip in his cheek.

Phryne rolled her eyes, acute accusation in her voice, “It didn’t seem to bother you the last time.”

He laughed at the flirtation, but only for the briefest moment, before a familiar sadness crept into his voice behind his lingering smile, a sadness Jack would have known in any man - stranger or not, “It was a different Continent last time. Our troubles were over then. Now, they are only beginning.”

A silence; the kind of scar-tissue that unsettled a room. Phryne never felt it more acutely than she did here, and the years seemed not to have alleviated the pain that had been the initial wound of war. It was far too pertinent a suggestion that all she had been trying to avoid since their arrival in Italy was true, that the sparks of joy and light she had known were but brief flickers of a life dying under the boots that had marched through the piazza that morning.

“Nonsense,” Francesca refused it. “We have survived dark clouds before, we will survive them again,” she turned to Jack with genuine fight in her eyes. “You must forgive us,” she gently touched her hand to his forearm, “Italians are passionate in all things, be they tragic or romantic. We wouldn’t be quite happy if we were not exaggerating something or other.” It was a scolding, and the cast of dark eyes at Marco, the dampener in the room, was an indicator of that. “It’s clear Mr Altamura does not remember that it is a healthy helping of both tragedy and romance that makes the world so beautiful a place,” she pressed on, “and I have just the thing for it!”

Phryne smiled at once, knowing full well where this was going, “Puccini?”

A warm grin in return.

“Obviously,” she turned to Jack, “Tomorrow evening. I took the liberty of reserving a box. It’s not the Teatro alla Scala, but it will do for your first time in Rome. Perhaps we can then tempt you with a detour to Milan at a later date! What do you say, will you join me, Mr Ridgeway?”

Opera. Phryne remembered the run in with Gilbert and Sullivan. She could not help the hitch in her breath, and the chuckle in her eyes.

“It would be my pleasure,” Jack replied, hardly missing a beat, his smile steady, “after all, I am here for a little cultural education, or so I’m told.” He looked over at Phryne, then, his composure appearing seemingly from nowhere, as had his earlier remark on her company.

He really ought not to overlook a career on the stage.

“Francesca will never tell you that she was the prima donna at La Scala, so I will,” Phryne interjected, beginning that cultural education to which Jack had alluded, “so you’ll have no finer ear to escort you through the world of Italian opera.”

“An age ago!” Francesca added, swatting the comment aside with a genuine lack of care about it, “but I will accept the title of finest ear in this Philistine moment. I think Il Duce’s men are more interested in beer halls than opera houses.”

“Though, I hear they’re fittingly revisiting Tosca this season. A ravishing prima donna, a sinister Chief of Police… It’s as though they picked it for you, darling,” Marco’s gaze cut through the gaiety to Francesca. There was a sudden darkness in the room, and Francesca truly stopped for the first time in the conversation.

Her dark eyes, flashed a warning.

“What I believe Marco is trying to tell you is that we will likely be joined by an acquaintance of mine,” she began.

“Her Black Shirt,” he finished flatly. Phryne blinked.

“My Black Shirt - though casual acquaintance is hardly possession -” Francesca returned, measured, “is the current commander of one of Il Duce’s more elite police units, not MSVN. He is of a very refined taste, and a major Patron of the arts, so comparison with the rest of the mob is hardly fair.” It lacked the lightness of her earlier teasing, and Jack could sense what was an ongoing tension, one mirrored by him undoubtedly at the revelation. He looked to Phryne, whose brow had crossed intently at the news.

Whether it was for theirs or Francesca’s sake, he could not tell.

“I’m sure it will be a pleasure to meet him,” he stepped in, knowing full well they could not avoid the acquaintance now. Francesca was immediately grateful.

“Thank you, Cerbiatto,” she smiled, “I am very sure it will be.”

Though the room did not seem to agree, their hostess did not leave the comment up for debate. Instead, she turned to her man and made a flurry of requests in Italian that Phryne found most familiar in the vast collections of her memories of Italy.

She released the query that rested very pertinently on her gut.

xXx

“The opera?” Mr Butler enquired, feeling Jack’s tension as he searched the items of his wardrobe. He had already settled them to home in the large dressing room adjoining the sizeable bedroom ‘Mr Ridgeway’ had commandeered. Though, Mr Butler had noticed, it was not the master bedroom. Jack seemed none to disturbed by that fact, since it more than covered his sensible needs. He would simply have to adjust to the pile of the carpet, the view of Rome that beckoned beneath a broad set of terrace doors opening onto a generous balcony, the imported Oriental silks that covered ever inch of the heavy mahogany four-poster bed…

“Yes,” Jack answered from his place looking out over the city from the open doors, his voice still tight with concern, even as the rest of the afternoon tea had passed with no further snide remark, “with a major Italian official.”

Mr Butler stuck his head back into the room, leaning questioningly around the doorframe, “Official?”

“Official,” Jack repeated darkly at him.

“Ah,” Mr Butler nodded, immediately returning to his work as ‘I told you so’s pressed against Jack’s tongue.

A sigh was all that came of it, for Jack had to remind himself that it was hardly Phryne’s fault. She had revealed her surprise just as keenly as he had when the announcement had been made. Her dear friend, so recently widowed - so recently pursued. She had planned none of it, engineered none of the next evening, or its promised difficulties. She had not expected Marco to feature, let alone anticipated a confrontation with the very faction they were seeking to avoid as much as possible. Perhaps that was why he was worried. He only hoped that word of their entanglement had not spread from Genoa. Another run-in with a Console was not quite how he had hoped their acquaintance with Mr Altamura would progress.

The thought of the man saw a return of the unease he had felt in his gut on meeting him. It was not his good looks, or his easy manners that had warranted it, but Jack began to realise that it was the ease with which he had extracted so warm a greeting from Phryne - even after all these years had passed. He pressed the idea aside, childish as it was, and considered again their predicament. It was not to be avoided, and that in itself was reason to discard any further complaints about it. They would have to make do, and if that was the requirement, Jack wondered suddenly aloud, “Perhaps we can use it to our advantage?”

Mr Butler returned with a few suitable items in his arms, laying them out with care on the bed in even sets, “Any particular thoughts?”

Jack didn’t move, his brow still calculating the end of his own suggestion, “Well, it might be beneficial to be close to the authorities, rather than avoiding them. It seems we’ve aroused enough suspicion as it is.” Mr Butler looked up very briefly as he folded back cuffs and examined the press-work, letting that thought gather momentum. “It would give us ample opportunity for the - charade to get across…” his eyes rested on the carpet. He remembered a voice curling carefully over his shoulder on their arrival in Genoa.

There was nothing so suspicious as suspicion.

Mr Butler straightened a sleeve. “What does Miss Fisher think?” he asked.

Jack blinked at the name, breathing in the thought and the way it seemed to bring her into the room. “I don’t know,” Jack answered, “she and Miss Williams made a break for the door as soon as we walked through it. Fabrics were mentioned.”

“Ah yes, fabrics, of course,” the smile was slight as he stood to his full height again and Jack looked over at him, “and you thought cravats were a nightmare. A woman’s trip to the opera is about as easy to manage successfully as brain surgery.”

A genuine laugh, then, the first sign of true ease.

“Yes, well, I suppose a cufflink or two can’t hurt by comparison,” he offered back, and then in tangent, “I’m sure we’ll discuss it at some point.”

“I suggest you do,” was all he got in response. “Now who is this ‘official’?”

“An acquaintance of Francesca’s,” Jack turned to admire the man’s handy work, a strange sense of familiarity beginning to take shape around the moment.

“Francesca?” the butler noted, his brows shifting the very slightest of inches.

“Mrs Agostini,” he continued formally, “though Mr Altamura seems to think he has more serious designs on her than friendship, or her ear for the opera. From what I could gather, he’s a senior law enforcement officer, much like our Console is to the militia. I think black tie for dinner tonight.”

Mr Butler smiled at the deviation, “Excellent choice, Sir.”

“But, if I’m not mistaken, he might be a great deal more than militia,” Jack continued. The butler offered him a look of focused concern.

“Worst case scenario?” he asked.

“Organizzazione per la Vigilanza e la Repressione dell’Antifascismo,” Jack replied in a fluency that suggested homework had been done before they had sailed, or that his regular entanglements with immigrants at home had yielded a great deal of intelligence. His jaw twitched slightly, “Secret Police.”

xXx

“Is he dangerous, do you think?” Dot asked, her face white at the revelations Miss Fisher was offering as she spoke of the afternoon, however carefully.

A gasp was all that answered her.

“Not as dangerous as that _red_ ,” Phryne diverted, fully aware of their surroundings and inclined to avoid conversation on the topic in much more detail before she had time to properly process it. They had dashed from the door as soon as they’d arrived home. Whatever Francesca’s spontaneity, it was nothing to Phryne’s ability to seize each moment that came her way, and her keen knowledge of exactly how much planning that required when it came to the Italian Opera. Dot had followed, as she often did - with a blend of trepidation and exhilaration - and had been infinitely glad that she had. The early evening had brought a life to the streets of Rome that the earlier ease had betrayed with only wisps of hints; the air grew steadily more full with each of its passing patrons. There were already furs abounding, tailored waists so elegant she thought they might fall to pieces on any closer inspection, to avoid giving away their secrets. Even the men showed signs of having been styled within an inch of their lives. The young companion and her lady had made their way through charming alleyways and major thoroughfares alike, and everywhere there seemed to be nothing about Rome that was not a calculated aesthetic co-ordinated for their benefit.

Phryne knew well enough that was untrue, but a betrayal of that reality would come of its own accord; she would not force it. As it was, they had descended on the Via Condotti, whimsically approaching the magnificent Spanish Steps - now in full bloom with the seasons Azaleas - and the delightful Fontana della Barcaccia. The ‘red’ she had admired rested in the display window of a small boutique a stone’s throw from the famed Babington’s Tea Rooms, a bolt of the most sublime scarlet velvet, spilling over a tasteful gilt chair and pooling onto the floor below with such stylistic fair, Dot was certain she’d have worn it as it was. It stopped all her previous thought-processes, and much as Phryne now stared at the item, the quick cogs of _her_ mind flicking through its own interior catalogue of design choices, Dot felt as though she’d never think again.

“It’s perfect,” Phryne stated with that certitude that had seemingly always been hers.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it,” Dot almost stuttered.

“Precisely,” Phryne grinned, “which is _exactly_ what the patrons of tomorrow’s spectacle will expect.”

“You mean the opera?”

“God no,” Phryne chuckled, “I mean _arriving_ at the opera. There’s a reason the setting on stage has to be so lush - if they aren’t careful, it’ll pale in comparison to the number of furs on display. Come on.” And just like that, she had disappeared through the arched doorway and into the waiting hands of who knew what kind of bargaineers. Dot’s gaze didn’t leave their quarry, even as she followed Miss Fisher, but when she did look up, she was suddenly unsurprised at what she had seen in the window. If Madame Fleurie’s was all clean lines and fine cuts, this room was all rich colours and deep aromas. “It’s the fabric,” Phryne commented blithely, “scented for added flair.”

“Buongiourno!” came a bright voice from a back room and a portly man with a curled moustache, preventing Dot from commenting on such extravagances. Before long she was turning on the spot, taking in the room and listening off-handedly as remarks flew back and forth between her employer and the vendor in rapid-fire Italian until he disappeared almost as quickly as he had appeared, and seemingly in a great hurry.

“That ought to do it,” Phryne smiled, turning to a divan that rested in one of the few areas of shade, away from the afternoon’s sunlight streaming in through large panelled windows. She promptly sat down, and Dot followed suit immediately.

“Just the red then, Miss?” she asked.

Phryne looked at her as though she’d been insulted, before a familiar glint appeared in blue eyes, “Sit still and enjoy this.”

“Enjoy wha -” before she could finish, the vendor was back, and with _friends_. The sheer number of assistants that appeared made Dot’s head spin, all of them draped with materials just as fine as the scarlet velvet, and designs she’d never set eyes on before. Daring waists, severe necklines, and backs that would bare more skin than was strictly necessary, all moved passed them in quick succession. Italian was being exchanged again, but the vast majority of it now flowing with song-like quality from the vendor’s mouth. It was fast, it was overwhelming, and it was _wonderful_.

Dot didn’t dare breathe, even as Phryne appraised each item with a clinically fine eye. She nodded here, frowned there, and peppered the vendor with questions in response. Dot thought that might be threatening to the man, but his eyes lit up with the passion of an artist talking about his work. His smile grew steadily brighter, and soon he had summoned yet another assistant for a small tray of late-afternoon treats, and some coffee.

At least she thought it was coffee.

She had never much indulged in the beverage back home - her mother didn’t always approve - and any that she had tasted had been bitter, the aftertaste lingerie unpleasantly. This, however, seemed to have been made by angels - silky and pungent, it slipped down the throat like it was caressing it. She looked up at Phryne in stunned delight, only to find the Lady Detective’s eyes already on her, the corner of her lips turned up in a very gentle curl.

It was a delight to see it all, and Phryne took the moment to revel in her chance to share with Dot the many wonderful things she had discovered in Rome. She had known from the instant she had seen her hesitate at the telephone that there was something rare and precious about the young woman, something that must only be given the chance to slip past the many hesitations that had been built into her demeanour over the years. As she watched Dot’s eyes grow gradually more amazed - and Phryne dared imagine just that little bit _wilder_ \- it was a moment to be stored away with the many others she treasured.

“Good?” she asked.

Dot nodded warmly, her shy sort of delight emerging whenever under direct questioning.

“Good,” Phryne turned back to the vendor and made a couple of quick requests and suggestions. As they talked, it was as though the conversation the two women had been having before slipped into the brief pause in the mayhem to intervene. Dot, frowned a little as the man walked away with a curt nod and once more vanished into another section of the shop.

“So, did you expect to see Mr Altamura today?” she asked. Phryne turned back to her, her smile slipping into consideration, and Dot thought she noted something else.

“No,” she offered honestly, “though it was a pleasant surprise.”

“Because it makes things easier for us?” Dot asked. Phryne hesitated.

“Yes, exactly.”

It was a lingering tale, like the end of a book that someone had forgotten to read, and Dot could hear the past slipping into the air between them. She looked into her cup, “It must be strange to see all these faces again after such a long time.”

Her insightfulness never failed to impress, and Phryne looked at her with the same admiration she had a moment before, “Not strange, just a little surreal. I never thought to return to Italy. Not for some time, at least, especially not with recent developments. Then, life can turn on a pin, can’t it?”

Dot smiled, “It certainly can.” For here she was, drinking coffee on the Via Condotti in Rome. “What will you do?” she asked rather vaguely, though the seriousness of her tone made it clear that she was referring to the complication they had still not discussed.

Phryne’s response was instinctual then as she turned to her with an increasingly familiar, warm reassurance, “What we do best. ”

“Signorina Fisher, I have just the thing!” the vendor returned, apparently speaking English for Dot’s benefit, “I have been working on this very secretively for some time now, but it occurs to me that the opera - and such a beautiful woman - will be the perfect time to share it with the world.”

Phryne ignored his flattery, and raised her brows expectantly in answer.

As though to reply, a model wandered out from behind him, and the item to which he was referring drew a sharp breath in from poor Dot, and the kind of smile from Phryne that indicated immediately that the game was _afoot_. There was a moment’s pause as everyone waited for her further response. She looked up at the vendor as though they were sharing a scandalous secret, all talk of dangers forgotten.

“Yes, Mr Vertaro,” she said, “I think _that_ will do nicely.”

xXx

The rest of the evening vanished, then, for there was work to be done, and Jack found the hours ticking away from him. While he had been eager to give Mr Butler the benefit of the doubt on this one, and follow through on his advice to talk to Miss Fisher, he had found it impossible in light of her sudden and prolonged absence. Assured by a messenger from a local designer that she was in the best hands and would be for some time - considering the urgency of preparations - there had been little for him to do but eat his dinner somewhat solemnly alone, and retire. His restlessness, however, had forbidden him from turning that retirement into the good night’s sleep that he needed.

He lay atop the covers of his bed, still partially dressed, having refused Mr Butler’s assistance this evening in an agitation that the man surprisingly did not press. He had rolled up his sleeves, and unbuttoned his collar, since the heat of the day seemed to have seeped into the air and kept it humid even as the doors stood open. The heady scent of jasmine snuck through, even at this late hour, and it was a stark contrast to the fevered way his thoughts assaulted him. After everything that had been said on the train, he was trying, he really was; but he found at every turn a wall of independence in Phryne that he could not grapple with at a time like this. While he usually had no desire to quell her, their context seemed to demand it, and he felt distinctly disempowered by her decisions once again. Her absence at the dinner table, _especially_ because of the pressing nature of the next evenings engagement, had nicked at the very thing he had been trying to manage in light of her previous willingness to come to the table of his concerns.

The thought pressed him up to sitting, his feet touching the cooler carpet below, alongside the shoes he had discarded for the same reason he had ditched his overcoat. The same energy forced him to stand, and he trudged across to the table where a pitcher of clean water waited. He poured himself a glass. He had done a lot of trudging this evening, earnestly trying to exist between a rock and hard place. His mind turned back to the opera for the thousandth time. This was dangerous. There would be police everywhere. They would be so closely watched, and Phryne had decided to make sure _her dress_ was -

A sound broke through his thoughts and shattered them: a distinct creak that did not belong to the outside world, or to the silent night of a moment before. Jack stood, his glass half-raised and his ears pricked. There was nothing. He quietly replaced the glass, certain of what he had heard. He moved across the room, to the bed-side drawer, still listening as he pulled out the very thing he had hoped not to have need of on this trip.

His pistol was cold to the touch in the humid air, and he cocked it as quietly as he could.

There it was again, movement; this time the soft huff of a footfall on carpet. It confirmed his fears, and he took a sharp breath in as he crossed to the dressing room. There was someone in there, and they were way passed polite hours to call. He held that breath, trying to garner any clues as to their whereabouts by the sound of more steps. The shuffle had ended, however, and silence reigned again. Jack trained his ears; still nothing moved. He gently pressed the door quietly open, ensuring that he was well behind the protection of the door frame. He peeked into the dark and saw nothing, though he could sense the presence of a person, and thought he caught a slight something in the air -

“I’m seriously considering encoded notes,” came a low, sardonic tone from behind him. Jack jumped as adrenaline peaked and wrenched his pistol upward to avoid firing it.

“ _Damn it_ , Phryne,” he hissed, “I could have killed you!”

“And this is a rendezvous I thought needed a little _privacy_ ,” she returned sharply, “not to mention my wish to circumvent Mr Vincenzi’s already dubious estimations of my character. And yours, I might add.”

Jack’s breath was coming out in rushes as his heart pounded, and he lowered his weapon. He turned on her in the dark, and found her still dressed from the day and quite obviously tired. “What time is it?” he asked.

“A little after four, I would wager,” she replied softly.

“Where have you _been_?” he huffed, moving to secure his pistol and return it to its place.

“Didn’t you get my message?”

“That was hours ago, Phryne,” the click of his disarmament.

“Aunt Prudence better watch out, or her role as family policeman might be usurped,” the stark shield of her defence. Jack’s jaw tightened. “I got back about an hour ago, and I’ve been waiting for my opportune moment,” she then explained, “I knew you’d want to discuss tomorrow night, and I didn’t want us overheard. Honestly, I didn’t think it _possible_ for Mr Vincenzi to be more of a hindrance than I had previously imagined.”

She walked across to the table, and took a sip from what he had so graciously poured. Jack tried earnestly to calm himself down as her reasonable explanation cut his complaints off at the knees, much to his shame. He tried to retract his earlier frustration. “How did you get in here?” he asked, suddenly curious about it.

“Insider’s knowledge,” she answered, “I remembered Rudolpho talking about several little passages he had constructed during the war in case of outright invasion. A little investigating yielded some thrilling results, the peak of which, I must say, is finding you so casually dressed.”

He ought to feel self-conscious about that remark, but the lightness of her tone hit where she had hoped. The humour served as a convenient outlet for his pent-up anxiety, and it forged a way for him to lower his battlements. If he’d had reason to be upset with her, he might have been irritated by the ease with which she had done it. As it was, he gave in to the relief of not finding the enemy in his bedroom.

Of course, finding _Miss Fisher_ there might be cause for all the more alarm.

He looked up, breathing deeply in and out to try and dispel the tautness in his chest, and found her resting gently against the table, her legs crossed at the ankle as she continued to appraise him. Self-consciousness, then, followed rather late. He cleared his throat.

“Did you, um,” he ran a hand through his already tousled hair, “get what you needed?”

“I did,” she said, her tone betraying that there was already more she wished to say.

“Good,” he nodded, as though it were the most serious of battle strategies. Silence fell. Jack didn’t know where to begin. “Did you know? About Francesca’s Agostini’s - friend?” it came seemingly from nowhere. A cloud crossed briefly over Phryne’s face.

“No,” she said coolly.

“You’re worried,” he stated simply.

“No, Jack, I think it could be of some use, I think -”

“About _her_ , Phryne,” he gently interjected, setting aside his concerns for what he felt with them in the room. Phryne hesitated, allowing a little of that vulnerability to settle as he read her.

“I’m concerned that she’s so graciously entertaining it. It’s unlike her,” she finished, keeping his gaze in that forthright way of hers. Jack nodded.

“That makes me worried he’s more dangerous than she’s leading us to believe,” he said, crossing to her and pouring another glass, to finish off what he had begun. It was a strange sort of intimacy, the unguarded way he did not rush to set himself to rights, to keep up appearances - perhaps it was the lateness of the hour, or the stress of their predicament, but Phryne examined his face as he drank, the cut of his jaw in the light coming in off the night. It felt like a step beyond whiskey by the mantle, and it nestled itself comfortably in the pit of her stomach.

She frowned.

“I was thinking the same thing. Still, there’s nothing for it but to go ahead and keep on our toes. I’ve been wracking my brain all afternoon for any other course of action,” she opened up, “but nothing looks worse for us than avoiding his acquaintance.”

“I agree,” Jack said, holding his glass and striking a familiar pose, even if it was with water, “his attention may also lend us some legitimacy if any questions are asked.” It was wishful thinking, but it was positive, and Phryne felt again that settling ease of being in tandem again.

“Full steam ahead it is, then,” she suggested.

“And may all our bridges be _in tact_ ,” he finished, a joke despite it’s subtle, ever-present worry. Phryne huffed a laugh through her smile.

“I’ll drink to that,” she raised her glass, and clinked it against his.

“And only water,” he said, “a sensible choice at this hour.”

Phryne all but scoffed at him, and rushed out a string of Italian before he could complain.

“Non sa niente della esperienza di questa dolce vita!” she spoke more to the air about them than to him, as though she were sharing her lament with the gods of his misfortune. His only response was the question in his eyes. “‘He knows nothing of ‘the experience of this sweet life’,” she translated for him, “A slight embellishment on Dante’s -”

“‘Paradiso’,” he finished calmly, “Canto XX.”

Phryne would never outlive her intrigue about the extent of Jack Robinson’s literary adventures.

“Longfellow?” she enquired. He smiled languidly, with that air of confidence that was neither arrogance nor false humility. She boldly ignored the pressing urge to touch him. “There’s a lesson in there, Inspector, if you’re willing to look for it.”

“I am sure you will enlighten me, if I wait long enough. Two seconds seems to be the current record,” he couldn’t help the smile. Phryne couldn’t help hers in response to the gentle tease.

“ _Dante_ ascribes great virtue to the Roman Emperor Trajan, _the pagan_ , in his experiencing the full gamut of the joys and horrors of this life. He places him second only to King David, as you’ll know,” she narrowed her eyes as though he were very inconsiderate in already knowing something she had thought to teach him, “and while I’ve no doubt a man who’s spent so much time around homicide has experienced the darkest of this world, I do think you could use a little more light.”

“Light?” Jack enquired, drawing her out with the question more than misunderstanding. His next seemed to flow from the relief of her being here again, safe, “And what would I be doing with light but stealing it from the likes of you?”

“Oh, stop it,” she said, fixing him with a challenging look of pure mirth, “I’m perfectly right and you know it. I‘m sure you have the instinct for a little illumination, or you wouldn’t be referencing Longfellow like it was a milk order.”

“My apologies,” he raised his hands to illustrate his surrender, though his eyes did everything to undo it, “God forbid I should ever get in the way of your insights.”

“God forbid it, indeed. You see, it’s like that blazer, Jack,” she said, casting a glance in the gloom over to the white blazer he had fitted so many weeks ago, now resting on a dressing model that Mr Butler had no doubt prepared for the following day, “do you know why you would never have bought it for yourself?”

“Because it picks up every speck of dust in the room?” he reflected practically. Phryne laughed.

“Exactly!” she all but sprung on his response, “You could not have made my point with any more precision than you did with _that comment_.” Jack was smiling despite himself, her enthusiasm contagious even as she seemed to be intent on proving his tedium, and even in the wake of so much tension. Perhaps it was a welcome relief. “Then there’s the fact that I had to all but drag you out here, to one of the most impressive cities in the world,” she pressed on, finding evidence aplenty of her claims before a flicker of memory clicked into place. Suddenly, a thought she had stored away slipped into her consideration and she made the swift decision that it was the time to resurrect it. Her voice softening notably, she ventured forth again with a gently emerging solemnity, “Or the fact that your first question when I asked if you were taking home souvenirs was ‘for whom’?”

Jack stopped, then, his hesitation like a door shutting in the wind as he felt her draw very suddenly close and thoughts of Rosie threatened him. Miss Fisher’s demeanour was no longer pressing, her gaze curious and a little too thoughtful for comfort. He cleared his throat of the laugh that had stuck there. He looked at his hand, now resting on the table as he had unconsciously leaned on it and he tried to ignore the anxiety that quickly returned to his chest. He did not answer, but Phryne was now sure of what she had perceived in Port Said. She would not force her way into that space, knowing too well how important were a person’s vanguards. She would, however, press ahead with her point to cover over his discomfort.

“Everything has to have a function to you, Jack, a purpose,” it was meaningful, despite her teasing him again, “ _live_ a little.”

He looked back up at her, the shade in his eyes drawing a need to comfort him from the very core of her protective side. She said nothing, letting him have his space. “In the light?” he finally asked, still a little sobered. She nodded gently, her smile stretching softly across her face. He nodded at that, but said nothing as he seemed to be considering the proposition. After a pause, she expected something profound, but what followed was equally diverting. “A milk order? Really? I thought perhaps my delivery generally would have suggested something a little above such a rudimentary understanding,” he seemed put out. Phryne chuckled.

“Really, Jack. Theatricality suggests rehearsal, familiarity is the mark of a true connoisseur.”

Familiarity. The word summoned far too much for Jack and he found himself in the middle before he even knew that he had begun, “I noted a particular familiarity between you and Mr Altamura today. I guess you knew him well after the war?”

The comment, though given with little emphasis was enough to undermine once again that tenuous platform they seemed to have established. Phryne tilted her head in query, pausing at his motive more than his question, “Yes, he was my very good friend. We were an intrepid little band, he, Rudolpho, Francesca and I. I think he taught me everything there is to know about Italian wine. We bonded over childhoods spent in Australia - though he left when he was very young.”

Jack looked at his glass. He had far too many things to ask, and all of them made him uneasy. “He made his feelings about the current regime quite apparent,” he offered instead, “he’ll have to be careful if this is going to work.”

“I’m certain he knows much more about such things than either of us, Jack,” she calmly rebuffed him.

“Still, a little caution couldn’t hurt,” he disliked his own tone, all the more for the nested source it seemed to be coming from. Phryne didn’t miss it for a moment.

“I’m sure we’re all being as careful as is called for,” she said, her own tone striking a shade of disappointment. In him? Perhaps. In his failing trust? More readily so. It cut her, and she felt it keenly though she was unsure why she should be invested in Jack’s feelings about Marco Altamura. All the same, it brought an end to the warmth between them and she felt the day begin to descend on her. “I should get some sleep, and so should you,” she put the glass down.

Jack knew he had misstepped again, but he held his line, unsure what exactly he was holding.

Phryne pressed herself off of the table’s edge and made for the little mouse-hole whence she had come. Jack turned to watch her go, trying to find something to say to her retreat. She beat him to it.

“Oh, I, uh,” she reached into her pocket and retrieved a small box, “I had the vendor put this together for you.”

She handed it to him, and he looked down at it with a quizzical brow. It was wrapped with a red ribbon.

“Thanks,” he said, unsure.

“You’re welcome,” she replied, her voice still a little heavier than when she had arrived. With that, she took her leave, and Jack found himself with a box, a glass of water, and a deep-seated feeling of having failed at something crucial. He hesitated as he placed his water down once again, and gently tugged at the ribbon. It fell away with ease, and as he removed the lid, he found his mood all the more conflicted. Inside was a pocket square of the most distinct scarlet - purely decorative in its taste, since it was the soft touch of velvet that met his fingers as he lifted it from the paper. As he examined it, he could just make out two very finely embroidered initials on it: J. R. No doubt it was meant to complete his white tie ensemble, and Jack couldn’t help the sneaking suspicion that she was schooling him yet again.

The conflict, then, was in the small voice which quietly condemned his pride and petulance at the thought.

What on earth did it matter? Somehow, he knew it mattered a great deal.  

xXx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, don't forget to read and comment if you have a moment!


	6. A Nocturnal Extravaganza

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The opera! Things unravel a little more decidedly as villains - and dresses - are revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone for your lovely comments, and for coming along with me for the ride. It’s been a long six months, and a difficult chapter to nut through, but I suggest that it be read with Tosca in the background, because - Heavens - it’s good. :)

Phryne had been gone from the moment Jack had risen, which was rather later than he’d ever admit. He had been unable to shake the feeling of the night before, of her lingering sense of tiredness, of his own sense of pettiness, which had grown more ugly by the light of day. He had taken a walk to pass the hours, had hoped for bracing, but found the Roman Spring more Inferno. Still, there had been distractions enough to fill his senses, to press down the disappointment that he was increasingly aware was his own, rather than that which he sought to project onto her. 

It was for that reason, that he had worn the pocket square to the opera, had chosen to swallow his pride and accept that here she was queen, that sartorial integrity was more her forte than his. 

This was a mission of distinct importance, and it was not at all the place for the kinds of battles of will that had been fought. It was with increasing regret that he had begun to realise that he had been instigator of so many of them, whatever her proclivity for producing the circumstance that seemed designed to set itself under his collar. He adjusted it now as the white tie that was this evening’s expectation pressed against his throat and reminded him that he was set to endure an entire night of that pastime he had sworn himself against - which Phryne new well enough. 

He had no more spent his time on opera in earnest than he had on operetta. Gilbert and Sullivan had been enough to set him off the kind of melodrama that passed for depth in the operatic world, and he held little hope for the work of a man who was believed to have indirectly caused the suicide of a young maid after his wife publicly accused her of adultery. 

As he alighted from the motor in front of the Teatro Dell’Opera di Roma, Marco seemed to sense his discomfort and arrived at his side as though it were planned. With what Jack was beginning to suspect about the man, he wasn’t convinced that it hadn’t been. 

“Jack!” he called, patting him familiarly on the back, “you’ve arrived just in time for the show.” 

His manner was bright and clearly on display, and in light of his earlier considerations, Jack set himself to the task of returning his effort, “I imagine I should be soundly scolded if I missed it!” 

“I do not doubt it,” Marco nodded appreciatively, “and once I was done with you, Francesca would likely have exposed you to all good society as a Philistine of the highest degree!” 

It was easier than expected, and Jack laughed at the camaraderie that the man painted with such finesse and ease. It reminded him of Phryne. “When can we expect the illustrious arrival of our hostess?” he asked.

Marco laughed, “When it is most advantageous, naturally. For now you must satisfy yourself with my company. But come! There are diversions enough for two bachelors in Roma without her, I assure you.”   
With that, he whisked him up the deep red carpet that was laid out in approach to the great pillars of the entrance to the teatro, drawing Jack’s eyes up naturally to the large arched windows that lined its second storey, light spilling out of them even as the sound of gaiety spilled from the doors. Already there were a pair of women atop one of the balconies, silks cascading, diamonds glinting from all corners. 

It was a staggering sight for a Police Inspector from City South. 

Again, the spectacle of Rome reached out and clutched at his lapels, a debutante endearingly intoxicated on the evening’s wine as she pulled him into the eaves of a Spring garden. The extravagance should have served to make him all the more wary, but - as it had been with the sweeping of a certain lady detective into his life - there was a charm about it that seemed to lull even his awareness into compliance. The interior of the teatro offered nothing to stem the effect, and as lush as it had been outside, it was proved to be mere overflow as they put polished shoe to carpet. The grand staircase began coquettish, its first steps peekingly visible from the doors, but as they entered, it opened up before them like the same debutante - in a manner which might make one blush to describe it. 

From above hung impressive chandeliers, their sharpened designs threatening to touch the floor below but for the cavernous height of the ceilings, disappearing above the mezzanine, and covered wall to wall with frescoes of the most intricate observance. Jack was vaguely aware that craning one’s neck to gaze upward was not ideal in terms of etiquette, but he truly imagined - especially as a supposedly uncultured visitor - that a little grace might be extended for this. 

It was a marvel form every gilt flourish on the bannisters to the statuesque nymphs curled playfully around the capitals of endless pillars. 

He must keep his head. It would not do to lose too much focus. 

By way of instruction in the matter, Marco was waving to a gentleman at the base of the staircase, his hair slicked back and his moustache so thickly present despite the wax that curled it into submission. His eyes challenged the warmth of both his greeting and his reddened cheeks - cold and grey, they held an air that Jack recognised as a sheer brutality. It was a look he had seen in Melbourne too, a shade peculiar to a society of men bent on business, family and violence. Mafia. Marco seemed unfazed by it, however, leaning in for an almost familial kiss to either cheek - a particular attention despite his bright acknowledgement of other patrons. 

Jack hung back, choosing to observe rather than intrude. Something unsettled him at once about the whole matter - perhaps something that could liberate him from the feeling that his reaction to the man at Francesca’s home had been overly critical, and yet it seemed a sudden jump from opera to conspiracy. They might simply be acquaintances. The smiles were broad, for show over a business-like respect. He trained himself back - Marco was a politician and a strategist, one could not read into every interaction. 

Finally, they shook hands and parted. 

Jack blinked. 

It had been a fraction of a second, the entire event over before it had really begun, but he stood more rigidly than he had at their first meeting, all benefit of his doubt suddenly suspended. Surely it had been nothing. Surely he had not witnessed a final act between them, the handing over of something undefined… 

“Forgive me,” interrupted Marco, his smile still fixed, “an old family friend - you understand.” 

Jack frowned before realising himself and the background that meant that family honours and dues were always of the utmost importance to him as well. He quickly recovered his speech. “Certainly,” he answered with a smile, his gut cold as he did. In the back of his mind, the flicker of an action, the small piece of - no. There were other pressing questions, immediate ones, and he could not allow his instincts to be free in this place, and certainly not for an inkling - a rumour of his senses. Smiles were not the only thing for show. They were on parade tonight. “I confess, I’m a little intrigued by the remainder of our party for the evening,” he forged ahead to a more definitive matter. Whatever his sensibilities about their visibility, he was still not completely at ease about this evening’s addition to the party. 

Marco seemed unnerved by the statement, however, somewhat shocked. “Please,” he began, “you must forget my childish outburst of yesterday. It would not do well to - overthink any member of Il Duce’s forces.” The end was soft, a warning more than anything. 

“Indeed,” Jack took his meaning all too well. “I see we are fortunate to make such an important acquaintance,” he offered by way of question more than respect for the absent other man. Whatever Marco’s caution, it only meant that the Inspector wanted to know more about any near and present danger. The Italian must see the insistence in his eyes, must know that such a feeble act of dissuasion would be no good. 

“We are,” Marco answered, his voice tight, “it will be excellent to be in his good graces.” Another warning. The discomfort of a moment before tripled.

“Yes,” Jack clipped with a small frown at being again rebutted. He demanded more. “Ought we to prepare ourselves in any way, so as not to offend Signora Agostini’s guest?” he suddenly recalled the chill that had crept down his spine on coming face to face with the Console in Genoa, it was dull in comparison to the combination of this conversation and the flicker of a moment he had perceived. Or believed he had perceived.

“Only be yourself,” was the man’s advice, “we can hardly be so formal and gloomy on a night like tonight!”

“I see,” he was not reassured, “I hope my manner is up to it.” It was an instant aggression, a distaste for being handled, yet again. He was about to speak again. 

“I’m not sure it’s a subject that needs discussing right now,” Marco said with sudden distraction, however, his green eyes flickering and then widening as he looked up to the staircase, “Miss Fisher has arrived.” 

It slid a neat blade across the artery of every earlier intention of Jack’s. 

Turning to follow the man’s gaze with a frown, he felt instantly as though he had been clubbed across the back of the head. She was handing off her furs to an attendant, and his senses were utterly robbed of their more reasonable functions. As she moved to await her announcement on the grand staircase - which dwarfed the one on The Principessa at best - his feet went almost immediately cold, alongside the tips of his fingers as patrons across the room turned and drew in their breaths in a hushed rhythm that peppered the room.

“La Signorina D’onore, Phryne Fisher,” came the announcement, and the room filled with smiles before a gentleman of a more elderly stature burst into spontaneous applause, which set off the rest and quickly set fire to the room: effort acknowledged and a clear victory won. 

If they had hoped to slip under the radar, of course, they’d failed. 

There was red velvet, reams of it, though somehow without the more dated excesses of some of the other women. As ever, Phryne gorgeously commanded the line between extravagance and taste as she smiled warmly and began her graceful descent. 

The velvet, however, was the least of Jack’s concerns, for having taken leave of his more rational faculties, it was the coquettish chiffon that caught his attention and held it; it joined what he noted were the front and back panels of the dress’s skirt, setting a flare at her feet which gave the illusion that she was simply floating where she walked. Unhelpfully, the true join was exceedingly close to the hip, and while the chiffon was gathered into darkened eaves to hide anything improper, it was suggestion enough to drive any man to drink. 

Further, no matter its hints, the skirt was nothing to the bodice - the delightful item that had so enthralled Miss Fisher in the designer’s workshop - and for all his gentlemanly nature, it was also the item that took Jack well beyond what he had expected of the evening. It was rather a plain cut for Phryne, a sincerely demure neckline standing contrary to her usual preferences, but that was really where ‘plain’ and ‘demure’ must be said to end.

It, too, was chiffon, and, as such, utterly sheer from waist to delicate shoulder-stitch. The only thing keeping her in mystery rather than scandal, then, was the reaching and spectacular display of sewn jewels that curled about her scintillating waist in a strategic and masterful display of stars and a gorgeously art deco crescent moon. For all its careful modesty, it hid nothing of the curves of her, and Jack could feel his scruples screaming from some distant part of his mind to look down and away.

He couldn’t have if he’d tried. 

Like the artwork it was, the piece drew the eye upward to the striking obsidian necklace that stretched across her chest and right up the line of her neck in a floral array of delicate stones. It shone the same colour as her hair, which was perfectly trimmed and unadorned, all sharp angles and finishing touches. Her lips were red, her eyes lined dramatically with kohl. 

Cleopatra had been one thing, but this? 

“Mio Dio,” came the smooth acknowledgment of Marco’s more extensive experience with Italian stylistic choices, for Jack could not have spoken if he had wanted to, and all thought of the conversation before vanished. He cleared his throat and forced his gaze for the floor, trying to gather himself. “I see now I stood no chance this evening,” came a ribbing acknowledgement from one to the other, “she is red head to toe, and you are the one holding her dance card.”

Jack frowned immediately, blinking up at Marco’s knowing green gaze. It flickered down to the pocket square peeking out of his jacket. Jack took a second, still hazed by the moment, but when the piece fell into place, it suddenly made sense, and he felt a sweeping mix of ten things at once. 

The square was red, but not just any red. It was velvet, and it was hers. 

Or rather, they were a pair that belonged to each other. 

The thought caught his breath in his chest, forcing itself away at once. If this was a statement, it was surely not a romantic one. He had come to know her well enough that the steady progress of her evening hours had little room for sweeping gestures and pairs. It was something else, though, and for all their bickering, it made sense of her earlier disappointment in him. Whatever they were, they were quite surely in this together, and the gesture began to seal up the cracks of his fear of being commanded and controlled by her at least. 

This wasn’t her game, it was theirs, and she clearly wanted him to know that. 

As though ordained, she drew near to him as the revelation did, and his eyes were darkened, full of the beginning of understanding as he slowly lifted his gaze to her. Up close, the effect of her was all the more unraveling. 

“Miss Fisher,” he acknowledged lowly, the only expression he would allow though it was covered with feeling.

“Mr Ridgeway?” she responded with the obvious query, leaning on the falseness of his name like it offended her. 

Her eyes said it all, ‘Are we all right, now?’ 

He breathed in, and could barely believe she smelled better than she looked, a subtle hint of Summer coming off the fabrics of her dress and corners of her skin. He swallowed and asked her forgiveness for the night before with one gentle movement. 

Phryne looked down as, once again, he extended his hand to her, and she let out a small sigh of contentment. Black gloves reached for her elbows as her fingers reached out for his. Blue eyes searched for something in his face that she had been considering all day. Even in her rush to prepare, she had wanted to know - why what he had said had stung so distinctly, why the presentation of the pocket square had not been all that she had hoped. 

She lifted her other hand and touched the piece of material gently. Jack’s breath in seemed to warn her of some unknown threat.

“I hope the new addition to your wardrobe is settling,” she offered, lightly for those who still watched on, her tone lifting from them the haze that had settled. Jack felt the change, another clue in the puzzle of her shifting faces, and he matched her lightness. 

“Well, the one that I had was hardly suitable in hindsight,” he smiled brightly, a smile incongruous with him and more in line with the increasing number of comments that were being passed with a false arrogance that suited him about as well as a floral print might. He presented his elbow like the clear friend he was meant to be, though as she took it, he could feel the rise of heat to his neck. It was fortunate, then, that his tails bore up to his chin. 

“Shall we go in?” he asked. 

“I think we’d better,” she smiled at him, “or they’ll start without us.” 

His answer was swift, and entirely outside of his control, “Nothing on Earth could start without you.” 

She merely chuckled at him, an airy laugh that belonged on a socialite, and he was glad of her safety here. She greeted Marco with a kiss to the cheek, a lingering touch on his arm that made Jack look away. 

“Where’s Francesca?” she pressed him, “You know I hate to make an entrance alone.” 

Marco laughed at that absurdity, “Where else, darling? She’s mingling back stage. Maestro pulled her back there as soon as he heard she would be in. Naturally, everyone wants to meet the prima donna who’s inherited Giacomo’s private box.” 

“Naturally,” Phryne agreed, though it took Jack a moment to piece together the puzzle. Giacomo? As in Giacomo Puccini?

“She’ll meet us inside when the curtain’s ready to go up,” Marco turned, accepting that Jack would have her on his arm for the night. It would change, they both knew. All the better to start where intimacy supposedly belonged. Jack felt an increasingly familiar tension in his chest as he thought about the Italian’s earlier greeting of an unfamiliar and unfriendly face. 

As they made their way into the inner theatre, however, he didn’t have time for tensions. His breath pulled back as they emerged in the dark, taking a private, curtained entrance to the box they had discussed. Puccini’s opera box. He would talk to Phryne about that later. As it was, the room opened up before them, rising four tiers high but for the balcony above. It was magnificent, all red and gilt leading up to the gorgeous fresco on the ceiling above - a sky scene with forest green surrounds. Further back could be seen a previously royal suite, now reserved for dignitaries. Il Duce himself had been known to frequent it, when the taste for opera had taken his fancy. 

As of now, it seemed to house another lucky official. 

Jack’s mind seized then, forcing the memory of what they expected tonight to the forefront. He stepped forward, gently taking Phryne’s elbow as she moved into the intimacy of the seats that allowed privacy, even in so public a place. Marco was having a decided conversation with the attendant in the doorway. 

“Any sign of Francesca’s admirer?” he asked quickly, quietly. 

His drawing near had caused Phryne to tilt her head gently in his direction, the familiarity something that brought a tingling sense of comfort to her. “Not yet,” she admitted, “I haven’t even seen Francesca since we parted ways this afternoon. I’ve no doubt he’ll show his face in time, the curtain’s about to go up.”

And what a curtain. 

What the room lacked in elegance - which was nothing at all - was made up by the pulsating richness of the extravagant red, hanging heavy with the history it had born for almost a hundred years. Even Jack had to admit, though, as he allowed himself a gentle glance at the red that was ever so much closer, it had stiff competition this evening. 

“I’m glad you’re wearing the pocket square,” she said suddenly, more softly than he had anticipated from her in this space. He met her gaze, warm and close. 

“It was truly thoughtful, Miss Fisher,” he all but stumbled over the formality. 

“So my gesture wasn’t overbearing?” she teased, ever so slightly in light of the subsequent revelation. 

“Not at all,” he acquiesced with gentle acknowledgement. 

“It didn’t offend sensibilities?” she pressed a little further with her words, and he could have sworn a little more into his space. 

“It’s a gift,” he admitted, softening all the more to her. 

“It’s a promise,” she nudged, as ever, for more. 

Francesca finally joined them just as the orchestra was tuning up, though, curiously, her infamous beau was still nowhere to be seen, Phryne noted. The diva had been hesitant to talk of him that morning, when Phryne had visited for a breakfast of sweet breads and warm chocolate - it was a delightful reality that Italy favoured a fuller figure, so morning indulgences such as these were welcomed, demanded more than allowed. 

The Lady Detective found the whole matter of The Man severely suspicious, and she kept her glance for signs of agitation in Francesca’s all-too-gay demeanour. Naturally, she looked radiant in a rich sapphire blue, her dark features setting off against it with almost mathematical definition. If Phryne had dazzled in her appearance, the older woman reigned easily in the steady regality of a place long-since owned. Even now, it was apparent that all eyes were on them as a group, but that hearts belonged to Francesca like they did to nostalgic photographs. 

“Principessa!” came a cry suddenly from below, as though to confirm it, and Francesca gave a delighted chuckle alongside a sentimental kiss through the air. 

She was at home. 

Phryne smiled at the surety of which she had once been so in awe. If she had learned adventure in Paris, daring and risk, it was in Rome that she had learned presence, regained her sense of self - so mercilessly stolen from her. Even then, she had not faced the spectre of her brutal spiritual thief until the Café Repliqué, or even the private antiquities collection of Melbourne University. 

That was a story perhaps she would tell at another breakfast rendezvous. 

While she would not openly discuss this aspect of her life with anyone, it had been Francesca who had taught her the truth of the inner pillars of her soul - the room that was no-one’s but hers. It was in Italy she had learned independence, never to give away that part of herself. 

“No man can take what you do not give him - not of the spirit,” Francesca had said, seemingly reading the ailment in a young girl’s eyes, “‘Build yourself an inner cell and never leave it.’” And while that bit of advice had come from Saint Catherine of Francesca’s native Siena, Phryne had welcomed it despite her stance on sins and their number and variety. 

As she watched her friend settle into her place in the theatre, she wondered just how much she had kept in her own inner cell, and whether her hesitation to discuss the mysterious addition to her life was a part of that same reality. The question, however, brought Phryne dangerously close to mistrust of her friend, and she would not allow it without real evidence to that effect. 

“Jealous?” came a voice very suddenly close to her right ear. It was disappointing she had to admit to herself if nobody else, coming as it did from Marco, leaning on the back of her chair from his place behind her. 

“This will be a very short affair if you think the triumph of other women makes me jealous,” she flirted nonetheless, “I have accolades enough of my own, thank you… and all of them of my own assignation. I don’t need balcony admirers to ensure I am not in short supply.”

“Not a Floria Tosca, then?” he answered back with just as much heat. 

Her glance in his direction was subtle, and she did not break her attention from the stage as they awaited the conductor, “You’re determined to find a heroine tonight, aren’t you? Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to find another opera box if you’re looking for one of the malleable sort. You’ll also remember what Scarpia learns about Tosca in Act Three.” 

“Bené,’ he smiled widely, “the Phryne I knew has not changed at all. Well, apart from her purpose in Rome, and her travelling companions…” 

“Jealous?” she did not hesitate. Marco laughed outright, delighted. 

“Competition is hardly defeat,” his voice was intent, and Phryne knew that - if this was for show - he was enjoying it entirely too much. 

She did not allow her smile to fade, the flicker of attraction slipping neatly down her back as he retreated into the dark, and his own chair, seemingly unfazed by the seating arrangement for the evening and the presence of a certain scarlet pocket square. It would be a lie to say that she wasn't affected by the same Italian overconfidence that had struck her so definitely the first time, the instant flash of colour on display at the sight of a potential rival. 

She was human after all. 

It was not, however, something she strove to think overly about, since her gesture to Jack had undoubtedly been one of partnership above romance. 

Undoubtedly. 

Yes. 

Applause broke out as the conductor appeared, flourishing his arms in an arrival that proved perhaps more flamboyant than some of the more eccentric patrons. Jack leaned over, an action more welcome than Marco’s, Phryne was again required to admit, despite her firm and stated intentions. 

“If the rest of this is nearly as dramatic as that entrance,” he intoned, “you owe me a very stiff drink at intermission.” 

Phryne smiled without having to give it a thought. 

“Which one?” she offered lowly. 

“Drink?” he questioned, confused. 

“Intermission…” she all but threatened as the house lights lowered just late enough for her to see the mirth drain from his face, even as that on hers seemed to grow in inverse proportion. 

“I take it back,” he offered almost petulantly, “you owe me dinner at least.” He wouldn’t quite realise what he had said until it was out of his mouth. 

Phryne didn’t miss it for a moment and, per usual, she seized upon it immediately, “I’ll hold you to it.” 

She had so nearly said, “Inspector”.

He could have sworn his tie was too tight. 

The silence that followed was all too well-timed as the overture promptly prevented any further conversation, and Phryne was sure that whatever Jack’s objections, he would have to admit at least to the great skill of the artists. 

It might not be La Scala, but it was a far, far cry from Richmond.   
There was something about Puccini so sensually visceral, and Phryne found herself lost before long. As the evening painted on into the later hours, brushing together the direly Italian story of the fiery diva and her lover, the air seemed to fill with a clinging need for connection, for touch and intimacy. It was a need that the composer had running in his blood, and seemed always to spill over into his music. The sound of Tosca’s jealousy was far more romantic when embedded in Puccini’s string section, and even the admiration of Cavaradossi for the virginal blonde embodied in his art was physical on hearing it. He was a painter of frescoes, of course, rather than the more Bohemian prints of the French, and whatever impassioned desires were worked out on the stage, it was ever with the memory of Michelangelo hanging boldly in the background. Whatever the Italian taste for debauchery, it was always in the perfectly ironic knowledge of its own Catholicity. Even the sinister underpinning of Scarpia’s high-handed moral reasoning lulled Phryne almost beyond concern as the first act drew to a close, though her sharp senses were fixed always for the entrance of their expected guest. 

As the curtain fell, then, and the house lights were raised, his absence remained conspicuous. 

“A note,” Francesca cut in quickly, before either Phryne or Marco could pass some blithe comment, “it seems our patron for the evening has been detained by business.” 

Jack’s relief was palpable.

“And what business is this?” Marco teased nonetheless, ever in need of something to fill his humour. 

“Torture and blackmail, I’m sure,” Francesca did not blink, though her look to Phryne was one seeking defence in some measure. 

“Well, I’m sure we’ll muddle on without him,” Phryne interjected, turning the evening towards gaiety rather than any more of this tension. With the impending threat out of the way, there was little more to the appearance than public revelry - to be seen. 

And had their entrance and their company not seen to that? 

“Empty!” came a sudden cry from the door to the box, and whatever relief had flooded in a moment before, it vanished immediately. Jack reached instinctively for his ribs, though he knew the usual security of his holster would not meet his fingers. It took a moment for him to register Phryne’s own clutching thoughtlessly for his knee as well. He blinked and they were gone. “Honestly, Francesca, I am horrified that I have had to make this public spectacle of myself only to find that the rumours are true and that you are so selfish as to keep one of the best seats in the house empty!”

It was a voice Jack recognised, and he scrambled to try and make sense of that impossibility. 

“Freddie!” came Francesca into the mix, way ahead of him and ready to supply an answer, “don’t tell me that nasty officer has finally driven you out of Genoa! You rotten scoundrel for not telegraphing sooner that you would be in Roma! Had I known, naturally, I should have had you on my lap rather than in a bad seat!” 

Merton!

“Be careful, Darling, or people might start believing you’re no longer an omnipotent goddess,” the actor warned, his moustache hiding his smirk only very slightly. 

“We thought we’d left your delightful face by the seaside,” Phryne cut in, her tone coloured with equal pleasant surprise. 

“All that discussion about Rome at The Hopper made me terribly homesick,” Merton gestured at the theatre around them by way of explanation, “Besides, I could hardly let you two have all the fun.” He waggled his brows, casting them slyly at Jack for the briefest of moments. 

“What fun could possibly be had without you?” Phryne stood to kiss his cheek, and clutched at his wrist to pull him further into their party - an ally was a vast improvement on the enemy. 

“Of course you two have met,” Francesca crooned, “I could hardly expect two such forces to co-exist in one place without colliding almost immediately.” 

Phryne chuckled, “Darling Merton here made our arrival in Genoa just that little bit more bearable.” 

“Bearable?” the actor seemed utterly put out, “How dare you, bearable?!” 

“Oh hush,” she scolded, “nobody needs that much attention, I’m sure.” 

Merton laughed loudly, delighted. 

“This is fate,” Francesca then announced, “now I am sure of it. I have been meaning to hold a recital at home for some time now, and then who should arrive but one of the finest Shakespearean actors in all Italy. You must say that you will perform.” 

“I can’t that day,” Merton grinned, “I have wine to drink.” 

“Better than Tuscany’s?” Francesca dared him. 

“Don’t overdo it, I was sold to the idea after ‘one of the finest Shakespearean actors’,” he leaned forward to kiss her cheek in turn, “an honour and delight, always.” 

Jack’s head was spinning, the conversation moving too fast to stay attached to it. 

“You must join us here too, of course,” the hostess beamed, “my guest, unfortunately, is unable to join us.” 

“To be in Giacomo’s box, and on your arm? God has surely never smiled on me so much as this night,” came the overwrought reply, and then suddenly, “though not as much as he has on you, Mr Ridgeway. Look at this dress, Miss Fisher!” 

Jack blinked at the insinuation, and found himself demurring as Phryne gently posed to accept the compliment. 

“I - hardly dare to claim it as my good fortune,” Jack managed, “Mr Altamura and I were saying earlier - ” He stopped, having raised his hand to gesture back at Marco’s chair, only to find the man had vanished. Phryne noted it too, and her quick eyes darted about the box to find him. 

He was nowhere to be seen. 

“Flighty as a woman, that one,” Francesca dismissed it, “come here and tell me all about Genoa!” 

Francesca subsumed Merton into her space, and Jack took a moment to take hold of Phryne’s elbow once more. 

“Did he say anything to - ” 

“No,” she answered him quickly, puzzling her way to the next query, but Jack was no longer listening. His mind was filled at once with the vivid flash of a double kiss of greeting and a hand slipping something, an object undeniable, into a pocket. He felt his gut clench. It was at the interval. Marco could be seeing to ablutions for all Jack knew. There was no time to express anything further as the lights flickered, indicating the arrival of the second act. Soon he was forced to take his seat in the dimming box, as the conductor returned and seemed to steal all chance for thought. 

Two missing men. Marco had not yet returned. 

Jack had to admit that the first act had captured him swiftly, the music and the sheer skill of the actors performing it, enough to arrest his imagination - despite his finding the story as dramatic as he had feared. He had shifted along to the thrum of it like a fish on the tide, found himself moved by the very force of it, eventually embedded into the tale of these two lovers with masterful artistry. As it was, however, the second act had no such chance to seize him again, as he tried to recapture his thoughts and could not turn them away from the now empty seat behind them. It wasn’t until they were well into the next scene that Marco reappeared, and none would dare break Scarpia’s frightful speech to query his absence. The moment passed, but the question lay in Jack’s thoughts through every note. 

Family connections. Allegiances. Signs of devoted loyalty. Mafia, undoubtedly. The hand shaken could only be a family head, by the rings on his fingers and the surety in his stance. The kiss could only be a mark of collaboration, of knowledge. But then what could he devise from that? As he had noted before, Marco was a man of politics, a connector if ever he’d seen one - a connector that they had already established was willing to help Mother England get the upper hand on Il Duce. Every connection could be useful. 

It sat awkwardly between his ribs, and he wanted desperately to pull Phryne aside and talk to her openly about it - a method he had discovered had begun to yield more than mere conjecture between them. As it was, however, the more he considered the conversation after the night before, the more he feared the shadow he had seen in her eyes. The risk of that disappointment at his distrust was enough to keep him through the rest of the evening. Without much more than an inkling to come up against her long-time friendship, he was not quite prepared to enter that arena with her. 

He could see the confrontation in his head, and he forced himself to let it go. 

So the evening passed, the gaiety continued and Merton’s sudden appearance began to shift the centre away from everything they had feared and into a sort of suspended reality in which Phryne began to truly behold again the Rome she knew. The light returned, and she allowed herself to vanish into a time when murder and mayhem had taken a backseat to delight, when Italy had demanded that it be so after a war that had been a farce to many. Even in its devastating finality, the opera offered up the soaring beauty of the Italian soul, and the wine that Jack finally allowed himself sunk into their very veins, rich, and warm, and comforting. 

Within time, he found himself laughing. 

Phryne felt something awful slip away from her bones, and she could not deny that it was connected to the obvious similar affect in Jack - she watched closely as tension slipped from his shoulders, and she passed it off as being in response to the absence of the officer they had both feared and expected. It raised a sentiment within her that she had noted increasingly as they had settled into their mission, as her surrounds had reminded her of her own earlier awakening - it was a sentiment she had attempted to express to him the night before, and one she had hoped to answer with the pocket square, when his caution had barred her from reaching the full effect. 

When she saw him smile, she knew it for what it was. 

As she so often hoped for those around her: for Dot, and for Jane, and for Mac, she hoped equally for him, and she had not realised until this moment that it had been the strongest drive to bring him with her to this place that held such meaning for her. To see that smile, then, was the beginning, she believed, of the answer she was seeking for him and so many others in her circle: that life was for the living, even in its darknesses. While she saw his facade in each action, Mr Ridgeway at play, she saw something else just at the edges of it, a choice he was making that boded well for all that she had begun to notice in him. She had seen the questions bubbling beneath his surfaces at Marco’s disappearance, felt the distracted way the second Act had begun, but she had also felt the very moment of his decision - one she hoped would begin a new chapter in the way that they perceived and faced each other. It was a counterpart decision to the one she had made as she had begun this intriguing approach of invitation and suggestion, rather than whirlwind force of life - a choice to let go that which was to him so obviously irresponsible, irrational perhaps. 

A choice, she realised to trust her, even if just a little. 

xXx

By the time they left the opera house, Marco intoxicated enough to be singing the final strands of Scarpia’s death scene with no intonation whatsoever, there was an air of revelry about them all. The night seemed to respond in kind, warm as Francesca made several suggestions of what ought to be done in these now late hours before they were forced to part company. Surprisingly, it was Merton who shattered the dream, declaring that he would be leaving first for home to settle after his sudden journey, and bidding them all a somewhat stark farewell. It was predictable, then, that as they left the ensconced corner of the opera box and the actor betrayed a behaviour that must bring them back to reality, Jack felt the open darkness of the streets begin to close in around him once more. 

They must get back to the apartments, to the plan at hand, to the mission surrounded by fascists. 

Even the feeling of Phryne’s arm returning to lean far too familiarly on his elbow could not abate the sensation, though he fought valiantly to contain it until they were back in the relative sanctuary of Agostini’s home. Phryne also felt the return of his caution, in the same way she had felt the slight reprieve of the evening, and she fought it too, though not in a way that might preserve it for later. Her stubbornness fought for the smile that had been on his face, even as her fingers gently seized intimacy at his arm - a hope that her remaining peace, her joy, might somehow transfer from satin glove to woollen sleeve and sustain his. So sure was she that his reaction was unwarranted. 

It is a truth, however, that a wish for peace is no guarantee of its real presence, just as a sense of caution is no guarantee of any true danger.

As they left the curb that marked the departure of Marco and Francesca’s motor, the Fates seemed determined to make a point of this reality, and dark feet fell suddenly into step behind the couple as they turned into one of the interconnecting alleyways that would take them to their own transportation. It took mere seconds before the comforting grasp of reassurance was forced into a sharp grip of surprise as yet more hands appeared to seize them both in the dark, and what was a hazy security vanished into the sudden rush of shock. 

“Phryne!” Jack’s adrenaline charged through every vein, and he felt the bursting of so many instincts, suppressed throughout the evening. He might have been full of ‘I-told-you-so’s’, if it weren’t for the way her suddenly muffled protests put an instant stop to his breathing. They pierced through the night as she fought back against gloved hands over her mouth, tightening around her waist - 

There was a grunt as she landed a wrestled elbow to ribs. 

It seemed to spur his own fight on, though the number of gloves about his person was far higher. Italian was being hissed from man to man as he struggled against them, calling her name until finally a blow struck just beneath his sternum. A wave of nausea hit him at once and he coughed as the air left his lungs, doubling over despite the way his mind screamed for him not to - Phryne! 

He heard the halt to the scuffle before he saw the glint of a blade in the street light, and the almost wild look in her eyes as she froze beneath it. He blinked desperately through his inability to breath, and the bracing of arms that still strained against his violent need to help her; a hulking figure in black pressed himself up against every intimate part of her, her back meeting the dank brick of the alleyway wall. It pulled a visceral growl from him, and another blow to the stomach, which left his eyes streaming to blur the view. 

“Phr - ” there was no air left to get the rest out as he caught the low rumble of threats he didn’t understand, but could universally recognise - whatever the language.

And then, they were gone. 

As quickly as they had descended, like bats in the night, they vanished to the sound of footsteps in a dozen directions, echoing off the walls of the narrow street. Jack thought he might be sick, but it soon fled from his mind as he forced himself up from his knees, where he’d fallen as he had been suddenly released. He stumbled over to Phryne, who remained propped against the wall, breathing erratically. 

“Are you all right?” he asked almost forcefully, his voice gruff with pain.

“Yes,” she returned, stunned, “they’ve injured you…” 

“I’m fine,” he defended, “just winded. Did they hurt you?” A much more important question. 

“No,” it was dark, angry as ever he’d heard her, “just a string of threats, though I’ll be damned if I could make sense of them.” 

Suddenly, all thoughts of Marco and his earlier rendezvous assaulted him. It had to be related, he must have seen what he had thought. His absence at the first interval must confirm it.

“Phryne - ” he began. 

“Yes?” her voice was still ponderous. 

Suddenly, the accusation sounded piteous coming from his mouth, the evidence still scant and meaningless as it had been hours before, but for a prejudice he did not care to think of. He stopped, he needed more - evidence was the mark of his work, not baseless projections despite his suspicion. He sat breathing heavily for a moment, finally uttering the only thing that made any sense.

“Someone must know,” he said grimly. 

“I know,” Phryne answered, “this, the - the assassin in Port Saïd…” 

The words rang coldly into the night. Jack shut his mouth at once. He would not speak what was damning. “Who?” he tried. 

“Tomorrow,” she suggested, and he could not fault her. 

xXx

There was still silence as they alighted from the motor a few blocks from the apartments, the night air thick with everything that Jack was not saying. The snug closeness of the ancient Roman streets forced them to make the final leg of their journey on foot, which only seemed to heighten the drama about the Inspector, who studied every shadow as though it were a phantom. Phryne, frankly, had ignored him to this point, trying to consider the angle from which these mysterious new figures had appeared, trying to make sense of the threats in the dark, and the knife at her throat. 

It was the touch of her fingers to it, the self-conscious memory that broke the silence. Jack couldn’t bear it any longer, and the sight of even the slightest effect on her sense of security drove him to speak. 

“Are you all right?” he asked again, this time modulating his voice to the quiet of the late-night air. It seemed to break her out of thought, and she blinked as though to notice him there for the first time. Jack felt the distance she had just traversed to return to him, and he forced the memory of his pocket square to the front of his mind. ‘It’s a promise,’ she had said. 

“I think so,” she offered with such vulnerability to his gentle enquiry, he thought he might have imagined it. If his heart had been a table laden with feelings in categories and labels, the remark had the effect of flipping it over, and he felt the surge of adrenaline that had meant four men trying to hold him back in an alley. There it was, that feeling he had when granted the chance - perhaps the privilege - of seeing her as he had seen her on the stairs on the Principessa, which seemed so long ago. 

Authenticity. 

That was it! A something she hit without thought, or carefully protective calculation. Simply there. Simply her. 

Not the indomitable Miss Fisher. Simply Phryne. 

It stopped him in his tracks as they entered the mouth of the Piazza di Trevi. Phryne turned at once, her eyes filled suddenly with query, and checking very subtly over one shoulder to see if she had missed something he had not in the corners. Jack merely looked at her, studied her she concluded, since that is what he had been doing seemingly from the beginning of their acquaintance. She usually did not shy from it, however, but she felt keenly now a nearness of his increasingly successful investigations. As she always did when she felt an unsettling she suspected to be fear at the root, she faced it, and faced him. 

“I’m sorry,” he said at once, and Phryne’s brows knitted slightly at the response. “I’m sorry I couldn’t - “ 

“Jack,” she stopped him at once, knowing full well the word he intended to follow. He wasn’t here to protect her; that wasn’t his responsibility. 

She turned to walk further into the Piazza, and the Fontana di Trevi rose up magnificently before them. Jack stopped to take in yet another moment of significance, allowing her censure to drift behind him as the gleam of the street lights on the water blended warmly with the moon, and set an almost mystical air about them to the sound of water gurgling down, caressing familiar rocks beneath the incredible Corinthian design. 

Phryne smiled at it, like a familiar friend, and welcomed the soothing of the water in contrast to the rest of the evening. She walked right to its edge, breathing deeply the calmer atmosphere. She pulled her furs tighter around her, the chill of the night indicating just how late it really was. Comforted by their softness, their warmth, she felt the tension of her earlier encounter slipping all the further away, along with the questions she knew couldn’t be answered without some sleep and a few more pieces of the puzzle. She felt Jack approach, take up a space next to her and look down into the same space her thoughts seemed to occupy. 

“Are you all right?” she returned the earlier favour, turning her head slowly to look at him. He did not answer for a moment, absorbing the question before meeting her glance. He knew what he wanted to say, knew also that he did not want to say it, to risk the tussle, the jarring of cogs. Then, it was certainly not his way to conceal a thing merely to keep from conflict. 

“No,” he said simply, with neither force nor implication. Phryne appraised him, connected to his honesty despite what lay behind it. “I - I hate to see you in harm’s way,” he said quite frankly, having begun and then needing to go on to the point that rested in him. It was a curious statement in amongst all of his charges against her recklessness. It was somehow the bald truth, by comparison. Phryne felt it penetrate, and she gently chewed the inside of her lip. 

“This is not about me, Jack,” she responded, her eyes taking on a shadow that had graced her features in many a moment in which she had known she must offer a denial, “it’s about a great many other things, including possibly hindering the reach of men like the ones we met tonight. This mission, it’s important.” 

He breathed in deeply, looked back at the water, “I know.” 

“Then let me do it,” she prompted gently. Jack hesitated, knowing he had to make this thought plain. 

“I have serious doubts about Marco Altamura,” he risked again, forcing it out. 

Phryne didn’t answer, feeling her defensiveness rise to the occasion - both for her friend and for her sense that this had more to do with testosterone than true concern. 

She held her tongue, and listened. 

“You’re asking me to trust that everything he says is on the square,” he finished. His unwillingness to do so was clear as he brought his suspicions to the fore. Phryne was instantly surprised by the conclusion, a sense of urgency filling her at once when it came to his mistaken assumption. 

“No,” she counteracted before she could stop herself. Immediately afterward, however, she wanted to address it with something other than force. She reached up to tilt his chin back to her with the same consideration that had made her think of him first when it came to matching a pocket square to her gown. 

There was a tug within her that needed him to understand this. 

“No, Jack. I’m asking you to trust me,” her voice was so soft it was almost lost to the night and the sound of the flowing water before them. 

There was a heavy pause. 

After a moment, Jack allowed his eyes to lift themselves to her face, truly looking at her for the first time since the encounter with this evening’s thugs. She held something in her glance, as though about to lead him down some discrete and impossible path - a secret she had been keeping for the whole of their acquaintance. He tried to reply, but what could be said to that, really? In the silence, then, she seemed to decide something, and before he could make answer, her furs were slipping to the cobblestones with an almost slicing hiss, her fingers moving deftly to pull his pocket square from his dinner jacket in the same movement. 

"Miss Fisher - ?" he could feel the impending moment, and it forced him into an anxiety he could not yet understand. Propriety was his last bastion, and it failed him as she gently pulled off her shoes and watched him intently, ignoring his plea for an explanation, for a laying out of the pros and cons of what she was about to do. No plans, no assurances, nothing, she simply left him standing in his fear. He felt poignancy begin to overwhelm him as she stepped delicately over the small stone edge of the fountain, not caring even to test the water as her feet slipped into it with impossible elegance. 

Jack's breath stopped in his chest. 

"Phryne - " he tried to intervene as she drifted away from him. He shut his mouth at once, as soon as he heard the quiver in it, the pleading. 

The red velvet of this evening's promise to him began to soak up the pool about her, the chiffon panels floating to the surface where they could as she made her way to deeper water, red beginning to trail about her like a flair of magnificent plumage. Finally, a few meters from the edge, she turned to him, the damp material beginning to cling to her in manner that set a stricture to his gut. The look in her eyes slipped passed his defences, reaching down his throat and clearing a space in his chest. 

Then, she simply stood, her face resolute as it reflected the shimmering light of the moon off Virtue's Pool. 

Light. 

How briefly she had spoken of it the night before, and how keenly he remembered it now as she slowly lifted her arm, turning it over with painful grace to let the pocket square blossom from her fingers and across her open hand. Her gesture mirrored perfectly the one he had first seen in Genoa, as though that had been designed as a precursor to a far more distinct lesson. 

No, it was not a lesson. 

It was an invitation, and Jack felt beneath every flash of warmth he'd ever experienced in her presence, a sudden hook and then consuming wave of the intense curiosity that had seized him in fits and starts since she had first stepped beneath his arm at a crime scene in Melbourne. He fought it, as he had been doing for the better part of their acquaintance, but she did not yield. The impasse was palpable as they locked horns yet again over the way forward - she adamant to see him overcome, he determined to do it in his own time, in his own way. 

"I won't press you, Jack," she smiled softly, "but the water is lovely."

And just like that, something broke in him, something born of war and divorce, of ambition and duty, and that promise crashed through his resistance. 

The water was lovely.

For the first time he realised that it was not a matter of distinction or possession, but a question of opportunity. He had been fighting her for months, because he had perceived that this place, this style was something that was inherently hers, something she commanded and controlled, bringing others into it and pushing them out again on her whim. But the water was not hers, what was hers was the choice to embrace it and drink it to the dregs. She was not demanding that he do things her way, simply asking him to join her where the light was. He could not steal that light from her, because she did not possess it in the first place; she let it loose, let it shine, and it was her earnest desire to give it away. 

Phryne dared not move as he almost stoically took off his shoes, keeping his eyes on her with that protected gaze, and it was her turn to experience a nudge of approaching importance. As he chose to begin, she found herself wondering what she would do when he reached her. She breathed in carefully as a feeling sprang up in her stomach, one that was more readily identifiable to her than it was to him. It was raw attraction to his willingness to engage, to listen, to hear, but most of all to test, to challenge, and only then accept. Jack Robinson was fiercely his own man, and it made taking this journey with him all the more intriguing. Yes, intrigue. That was the word. That was this feeling. Certainly.

Still, she did not move. 

The sound of the water moving around the legs of his trousers was almost drowned out by the pulse of its counterpart falling behind her, but she could hear her heart in her ears as he waded through it with that purpose he seemed to embody whenever he made a decision as to his course of action. It was profound, and every switch she had felt in unity between them paled in comparison to this act of trust from him. As he drew near and pulled the red material from her hand, she grinned, "See? That wasn’t so painful, was it?” 

Her words drifted passed him like the rest of it, caught up in the atmosphere of mystics. There was only one object that seemed to be made of reality to him, and it was an action of flesh and blood that demanded his immediate acquiescence. Just as her feet had moved without warning, so too did his hands and just as smoothly, one slipping about her waist, drawing her near enough that the other might curl around the delicacy of her neck, and draw her in. The outcome of the moment became cautiously inevitable as he leaned forward for a kiss that had been the intention of neither. Phryne’s intuition in this regard had perhaps been uncharacteristically slow, owing to the delicious brink that had so long existed between them, and the forthrightness of the move now caught her entirely by surprise, leaving her to encounter every sensation in its immediacy: the touch of velvet caressing her throat, the pocket square still in his fingers, the earnest connection of lips to hope, and the warmth of closeness as he breathed against her in the cool evening air. 

She took no time in reciprocating the development, never one to quell an instinct that proved pleasurable, and certainly not one to waste a commodity so precious as Jack Robinson’s uncensored spontaneity. She met him in his moment, her fingers curling over the back of one shoulder, the others gently draping over his wrist as she returned the kiss with a delayed welcome. 

That answer, that impossible answer to a question he had not known he had been asking, ignited something within him, and all his attempts to demystify her came into sudden startling clarity. His discomfort regarding her connections with other men, his need to know if the way she looked at him was merely her way or something more, his pressing quest to unravel every quirk of her brow, and tilt of her lip: all were here in the way that she warmly responded to his touch. It was like uncovering a precious manuscript revealing the secrets if a hidden civilisation, the Rosetta Stone of her curious nature, and like Carter breaking through the wall of a long-buried trove he saw such wonderful things that he could do nothing but clutch her more closely, deepening their connection and pressing her up against himself. The cool dampness of the pool around them soaked into his skin, close and clinging, and as he felt the way it had crept up to her ribcage, over her hip and downward, it sent a shock through him of sudden propriety. 

He broke from her immediately, his rapid breath enough to alert her to the insensitive cold that had seized him. 

He stared at her, and she saw it descend with a vengeance. 

“Jack,” she tried to stop it. 

“I’m sorry,” he began. 

“For what?” she challenged. 

“I shouldn’t -,” he swallowed. There was nothing for it, and Phryne moved instinctually to what she knew would set him at ease. 

“It was a moment, Jack,” she lied, “it happened, and it’s fine.”

A moment. Unlikely to be repeated. Jack cleared his throat. 

“It… complicates things,” he said, scolding himself for perpetuating what was usually her purview. Phryne chuckled, noting the same distinction. Her body wanted so very much to go back to the moment before, still feeling the undeniable sensation of his grasping touch: honest with her, and him, perhaps for the first time. 

She breathed, knowing too well that he wasn’t ready. 

Without thinking, she put him first. 

“It doesn’t have to,” she assured him again, her gaze soft. It brought to his eyes such a pang of longing, she almost took it back. He looked to the water around them, and it was gone. 

“We should get back to the apartments,” he said, “you’ll catch your death out here.” 

The sudden chivalry made her smile, a laugh endeared by his care despite her keen sense that she could take care of herself. After a moment’s hesitation, she gave him his excuse, and nodded in agreement that she might very well catch her death - though she kept to herself that it would likely not be from the cold. 

*~*~*

**Author's Note:**

> Please do comment, if you have a moment. I love to hear from readers!


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